


Shameful Company

by kaixo (ballpoint), Whispering_Sumire



Series: Time Traveling TW Fics [9]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Assassin Stiles Stilinski, BAMF Lydia Martin, BAMF Stiles, Bathing/Washing, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Child Abuse, Child Death, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dark, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Everyone Needs A Hug, Falling In Love, Family, Fix-It, Fluff, Friendship, Ghost Lydia Martin, Good Peter Hale, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Heartache, Heartfelt Conversations, Hope, Hugs, Humor, Hurt Stiles, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Light BDSM, Lullabies, M/M, Magic, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mild Gore, Minor Character Death, Nightmares, Original Character(s), Pack, Pack Dynamics, Pack Feels, Parenthood, People Are Fucked Up, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Recovery, Sarcasm, Siblings, Singing, Sobriety, Suicidal Thoughts, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Wistful, non-binary characters, they/them pronouns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 03:21:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 38,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16547897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ballpoint/pseuds/kaixo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whispering_Sumire/pseuds/Whispering_Sumire
Summary: "Did I turn into a unicorn?" Peter asks dryly, and Stiles glares at him for a moment before the laughter bubbles up, unbidden, nearly unwilling, and he looks so surprised at the sound, his shock dimming it for a moment before it bursts through with even more trembling ferocity. A long, thin, willowy hand curls into a soft fist over his mouth, and he's shaking, frail, more tears falling, but the copper of his eyes areglowing, crinkling around the edges and scrunched with mirth."No," Stiles chokes, chuckling wetly. "No, fuck you, a unicorn? What, like, Rainbowcreep? Zombiesparkle?"[About a year before the fated Hale fire, Peter starts having nightmares that involve a woman with red hair. The nightmares lead to a spell that brings a man back through time, and, eventually, though the time-traveler is traumatized in the most horrific ways, and Peter's never been good with or for people, in general, they develop a bond that neither of them expects.]





	1. Chapter 1

**fanmix track**  


**Fanmix** is [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/jazzypom/playlist/6YwDpXpfErF3q3qTALAKZr?si=P4Px2ZOOQt60HENnC9RFbA)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved writing this fic, but I'm not gonna lie, I have a love/hate relationship with it, and it's been... rocky, lol, even _posting_ it has been rocky (to those of you who clicked on it before the story was actually up, my apologies, thank you for bearing with me), so, just. Strap in, because it's gonna be a wild ride, and know that, when shit gets real, I am _right there with you_ , because I _struggled_ , man, RL was a whirlwind while I was writing it, it's been a trip to get it posted, and I _feel_ you. Beyond that, I don't really know what to say, except... Thank you, and enjoy.
> 
> Trigger Warnings :: There is quite a lot of body horror, heed the tags because vivid nightmares, violence, and mild gore—also, suicide and child death is implied _heavily_ (kind of witnessed? sort of? in a vision? does that count? and talked about?), also, also, suicidal ideation. In act 4, there are allusions to another child dying, and emetophobics, please beware, because stuff happens;; alcoholism and recovery is a big theme, ptsd is a big theme, figuring life out is a big theme, and there are allusions to canonical child abuse but no scenes where it's actively happening. Also, a mild disregard for life—if _any_ of this strikes you as triggering or off-putting, **please do not read this fic, be safe, and I love you!!! ❀❀❀**
> 
>  
> 
> **[[Huge round of applause to kaixo for the Edit and the playlist!!! You did amazing!]]**

·☥· _Prelude_ ·☥·

Haunted By Petty Revenge

* * *

Peter won't know he's dreaming until he wakes up, won't know that that's why everything is all susurrus and sierra hues, why the fuzz in his brain rationalizes what should be confusing, like the little girl with volcanic hair, sand-swept eyes nearly as big as her face running toward him calling, "Unca' Pe'e'!"

She doesn't look like any of Talia's brood, and this place, even seeing it through this watery reflective-blur lense, isn't familiar. It's somewhere high up, if the windows are anything to go by, all wood and brick and open, airy, _homey_. He's sitting in some corner, on the bottom step of a rusted spiral staircase, book in hand; in the background, peripheral, are people, but their images sway, and if he tries to focus on them to any extent, they stop looking like people at all, start looking like unattractive smears of paint on an already muddied canvas.

His heart swells almost against its' own will at the sight of pudgy hands reaching for him, and, without thought, he sets the book down to scoop the little girl up.

"I never forgave you, you know."

His eyes snap away from the pup, light on a woman, heavily pregnant, with hair a shade paler than the girl's in an elegant half updo, curls cascading around her hips. She's supple in a fragile, girlish way, but she stands like a warrior, and her presence brings with it the thought of a phoenix, cloaked in death and ash and something ethereal, dripping with _absolute_ \- if subtle- _power_.

He blinks and she's sitting next to him, sea-glass green eyes sparkling, crinkling around the edges as they take in the little one nodding off in his arms. Her dainty hand smooths over the powder blue dress covering the swell of her belly, that piercing gaze moving from the child that is undoubtedly her daughter, to him.

"I could only stand to be around you because _he_ could, because he forgave and trusted you, understood you in ways I couldn't—because you and he and Jackson had all gone through something you'd only given me a _taste_ of." Her focus is intense, and he feels vaguely sick for having it, disgusted and ashamed of himself and wholly unworthy to be cradling something, _someone_ , so precious in his arms.

Her hand lifts, the long-sleeve white-knit drape of her cardigan slipping down the expanse of her willowy arm, exposing the concerning silvery line of a too-deep scar that follows precisely the line of her vein from wrist to inner-elbow. The press of her palm on his cheek is startling, porcelain smooth, like delicate ice-crystals frosting newly sculpted marble.

"I would say an eye for an eye- because it would feel _good_ to say- but that isn't why I'm doing this, and you, my ghost, my zombie, are a study in why revenge never culminates in a proper answer or ending; besides, I've chipped too many nails digging graves, gotten too many splinters, I tire of it." Those nails, sharp, well-manicured, utterly human, dig in, now, scrape as her hand slides down to cup his chin, uncomfortable squeeze, push, _forcing_ him to face the living area, the background-people (her expression never shifts—there is no fury, no grimace of effort, she remains impassive, distant, oddly earnest, wise, knowing, _sad_ ).

One of them is in full, sudden clarity, crisp, stark in contrast to the spiderwebbing, spilled-salt-grain hazy visages of all the others—he's _beautiful_ , laughing at something with the whole curl of his body, head thrown back to expose his dainty mole-speckled neck, throat flexing with the cadence of candid sound. His lips, upturned nose, freckles and moles, all match the little girl in Peter's arms, as do his _eyes_ , although his are more molten caramel than desert, gooey where hers are dry, deeper. Bittersweet chocolate hair curls down around his shoulders, tangle-rough, like he's run his hand through it a few dozen times. He looks tired, a little cracked open, and for all its' wonder, his laughter is more manic-bright than it is honest.

The young man swallows a mouthful of the drink he's holding, says a few words to whoever he's talking to, before his gaze finally moves to them, to their tiny niche. There's something deep-seated dark in him that makes Peter's mouth go dry, but it's _nothing_ compared to the saturated _fondness_ mingled with this aching, hard to define, heart-breaking _joy_ that fills his gaze when he _smiles_ at them—tight-lipped and intimate and, somehow, breathtakingly _brave_ , because Peter can _feel_ down to his very _marrow_ how hard the man must've _fought_ for it.

Lips brush the shell of his ear, the weight of the child in his lap grows _heavy_ , and it feels almost as if the woman's fingers are _sinking into his skin_ , unnerving, jarring, as her voice, whispering, saying, _screaming_ in synchronicity tears through his mind.

Shreds the dream.

Startles him awake, panting, sweating, claws ripping up his sheets, heartbeat thundering, throat tight, and eyes burning, a stinging ache that begs him to _weep_.

_**『Save Him.』** _

* * *

"Wow, little brother. You look like _shit."_

"Why, thank you, Tal, that's so incredibly insightful. I am ever so glad you're my Alpha, I'm sure no other could've deduced such a thing. You really must have a _spectacular_ mind."

"Yeah, yeah, flattery will get you everywhere." A pause, one that becomes pregnant when Talia realizes how... _haunted_ Peter looks. "Hey. What's wrong?"

"Nightmares," he sighs, grimaces, rectifies, "Dreams? I don't... I don't know."

"Do you think you need to see Deaton?"

"Maybe," he answers, face scrunched up as if he's in pain. Peter hates Deaton, with a _vengeance_ , if he's even _considering_ seeing him for this it must be _really_ bad.

"What are the dreams about?" She asks tentatively. Her little brother exhales slowly, just this side of shakey.

"It's the same thing over and over," he tells her. "I'm older, I think. I... I barely understand any of it."

"Just try to explain it," she encourages.

So he does.

* * *

The man is screaming, his hair whipping around his face, caught in the tremendous force of the wind, so strong its' nearly ripping deep-rooted trees from where they cling to the earth. His face is red and salted with tears and snot and spit, he wails to the sky wretchedly as his eyes flicker between their natural melting-sap and a sinking ash-flaked sort of mercury. He's holding the woman, her belly still heavy with a child Peter's beginning to suspect she will never have, in his arms.

She is beaten, bloody, neck at a _severely_ disturbing angle, rivers of deep, rich, lustrous red running from twin lines on her arms—wrist to inner-elbow, cut irrevocably deep, down to the bone so the wounds gape, _flood_.

The man sobs, folds over her corpse as a commensurate tornado is borne from the magic that rages within him, the wood clearing becoming a mist of tumultuous, murky, washed-out charcoal-crumble.

"He doesn't do well without people," the woman- despite her body being just three steps away, despite her being _dead_ \- says, stood beside him with a faint frown for the scene. The wind picks up, streaks through her hair until it resembles a badly designed sunset against a storm-cloud sky. "I know that. I _knew_ that. But I was in so much _pain_. I was so tired of screaming for people I _loved_ , and..."

She trails off with a sigh, shakes her head, lips pursing when her gaze flicks up to him. "You wouldn't understand; you never _will_ , if this goes the way I _hope."_

Peter tries to breathe, but there's too much oxygen, too much _air_ , shoving itself into his mouth all at once, suffocating.

Her delicately arched brows furrow, and she points one, long, bubblegum-blue nailed finger at him, presses the nail to his chest, traces a shape, slaps it with a splayed hand when she's done, pushing him back with the motion- and back- and back- and back—

He gasps awake, and it takes him three lung-clenchingly long seconds to realize that he is _not_ , in fact, falling.

(He won't notice the giant tree stump next to the clearing until the third time he has this dream, won't notice that it's the Preserve until he's been having it every time he closes his eyes for a month.)

* * *

"Where are we going, Uncle Peter?" Derek asks, and Peter represses a shiver, carefully refuses to think about a little girl with magma curls and sahara eyes.

Dreams are, more often than not, just dreams, Deaton had said, unless they're _hauntings_ , or _prophecies_ , but Peter wasn't a seer, and none of them knew of a strawberry blonde woman who'd died recently, because _no one_ has _died_. The Hale Pack has kept the Preserve proudly clean of any kind of _weirdness_ , kept their territory safe as fucking _houses_ , kept any and all kills- supernatural or otherwise- off their property, because you don't shit where you fucking _eat_ , and you _never_ give the hunters an excuse.

"I don't know," he tells the boy honestly. They're seven years apart, which is a _lot_ , but other than Laura and Phillip- who are three and five years older, respectively- he's the closest in age and relationship. He doesn't know how it happened, or when, but the broody, too-serious child is fun to mess with when Peter's bored, his reactions all delightfully interesting, and the teasing somehow made way for fondness, insults replaced with gentling-soothe in the aftermath—Derek isn't his favorite of Talia's children, but Peter still loves the kid, despite himself.

Derek makes a face at the non-answer, but continues to follow, though he gets a little sulky about it. Peter bites back a smile, trudging forward until they finally enter a clearing, familiar and not, both because he's only ever been here _outside_ of the waking world, and because there's no catastrophe, no unnaturally spun natural disaster, no blood, death, tragedy.

The sun is a bright, beating thing, the air is still, stale, thick with sweat and irritation, the foliage all green and _alive_. It's almost surreal how... _picturesque_ it is.

Just another piece of the Preserve, another sweltering summer day, no ghosts, no haunt, no weeping man, no dead woman.

He scoffs at himself, and Derek- who had stopped when he had, and who handles the heat about as well as a rabid dog- snaps a, _"What."_

Peter gives him a look, mildly amused. Derek glares. "We really need to work on your ability to _inflect_ , dear nephew, if that was a _question_ , you missed the mark. _Badly."_

Derek glares _harder_ , crosses his arms over his chest, impatient annoyance with a hint of petulance.

 _"Fine,"_ Peter sighs, airy and dramatic, "fail miserably in social etiquette for the rest of your life, see if I care." Derek stomps his foot, the picture of maturity, and Peter snorts, shakes his head as his eyes rake over their surroundings. "It's just... I don't know what I was expecting."

"It's _woods,"_ Derek grumbles, "you expect _trees."_

Peter offers him a distracted, tight smile, eyes finally landing on the large, strange looking stump. His whole body twitches toward it, but a familiar, ancient, brain-searing shriek stops him. Feminine, layered over thrice, a scream, a whisper, a statement: _**『Not yet, Peter.** Wait. **』**_ ****

He struggles to breathe.

His head _throbs_.

"Uncle Peter?" Derek sounds worried, sounds like he's called for him more than once; dark, concerned hazel eyes are glued to his chest, where Peter knows his heart is hammering madly, harassed by startled fear.

"I—I'm fine. We should go—let's. Home. We need to go home."

Peter snatches Derek by the arm before the confused boy can respond, and all but runs back to the house.

* * *

The child from his first dream—all pale skin and sand-salt eyes, volcanic hair and freckles, dressed up in lace, playing happily in a meadow he actually _recognizes_ (he used to come here, when he was younger, his father told him it had been blessed by a white witch decades ago, _'hallowed ground,'_ he'd said). There's a babbling brook maybe a foot away, colorful flowers blooming _everywhere_. The little girl laughs, and the sound is a soft, melodic, bewitching thing that convinces _more_ flowers to bloom, each one more fantastical than the last.

She bounces on the balls of her feet and turns toward him, eager, excited, so excruciatingly bright that he's honestly floored by it, that it's for _him_.

"Unca', Unca'! Look what I done! Dada, Mama! Look, look! I made a _garden!"_

He looks to his right, then, at the other two she addressed, the woman and the man, both, others around them, blurred and watercolor smudges where the couple, the pup's parents, are crystallized, saturated, _clear_.

A shriek cuts through the fuzz-soft warmth of the moment, and it's a small sound, one he might not have even noticed were it not for how the woman looked up to the sky sharply, to the thing that produced the sound, a raven. It caws again as it circles overhead, wings flexing slow against the clear sky, languid, and the sound trails of in a trill, undulating almost like an alarm.

The very end gets cut off by a heavy sort of _soundlessness_ , like a dampening weight against him, everything underwater, pulled down with lead, sluggish. The woman opens her mouth like she's screaming, and she's not looking at the bird anymore, her eyes are back on the meadow, on her daughter. The man beside her pales, face crumpling in fury and devastation as he lurches forward. All the background-people, so _hard_ to see, seem to cave in on themselves trying to rush after the man, toward the little girl.

Peter's heart beats a slow, terrifying, thudding rhythm in his chest.

It's a struggle, he feels weighed down, ancient, like he's pushing through molasses to get his head to turn, to look back at the meadow, the child.

Her blood paints the soft petals around her, body crushing the flora she'd only just conjured, white dress soaked with dark pools of horrifying, technicolor red. She's still breathing, small, choked gasps, lungs stuttering, _fighting_ —

Time stops, in this singular moment, everything trapped in stained-glass, stunted, impotently paralyzed. A thin hand, always stronger than he expects, squeezes his shoulder. He doesn't even flinch away when nails dig in, punishing.

"She doesn't survive this, does she?" He asks, and he hates himself for it.

"No," the woman answers. There's a static feeling of a breeze gentling by them, which feels so fucking _ridiculous_ when the man, and another version of the woman, and all the background-people are still-life statues caught in this frangible second. A picture of macabre horror, never-ending, but something he's so completely outside of, something _she **keeps** him_ outside of.

"What are you?" His eyes burn, his throat constricts, his heart shivers with him.

He knows she will not answer him.

"Her name was Claudia," her voice is soft, implacable, "she was our daughter." Her nails dig deeper, and for a moment, there's this disgusting sort of sensation that's wonderous only in how completely _disturbing_ it is, this feeling like his skin has gone unnaturally porous, like her hand is _sinking into him_ , "Peter Hale," she whispers, gravel and soot and something _ancient_ , chaotic, wild, "who do you think killed her?"

A dread-chill takes hold of him when he feels this unholy, sickening _press_ , squish, crunch. It's a _detached_ feeling, like the body he's in as she scrapes through his viscera and pulls his humerus _out of his arm_ isn't really his, because there isn't pain, just a distinct, bilious dismay. When, helplessly, his gaze is pulled by the awful things he's feeling, seeing, in his peripheral, he finds that the bone she's holding, still covered in the slop of _meat_ and _life_ it was yanked from, is entirely too small to be his own.

She scrapes a glossy, robin's egg nail through slick, wet, thready sinew, clearing it from the fragile looking bone with an unperturbed, vaguely disinterested scrutiny.

"I don't know," he finds himself answering, voice rough, raw, mouth dry. He can't move his arm. He's so _thirsty_.

She takes his hand, the _other_ one, the one that could still feasibly work, and places the bone in its' palm, curls his fingers in a fist around it as she dimples at him. The dissonance is crushing, disquieting. "Oh, don't worry, I'm sure you'll figure it out, you are-" her voice changes here, becomes a mirror of his own, and it isn't so much eery as _purely terrifying_ \- "the _clever_ one, after all."

This time, he wakes up screaming, and he wakes everyone else in the house up with him—soundproofing can only go so far.

Talia is _worried_ about him, and is beginning to get extremely frustrated with Deaton's relentless inability to give any kind of straight answer.

He has _this_ dream on a loop- with occasional visits from the previous two- for thirteen weeks. By the end of it, he isn't the only one who's exhausted, and it's only a wonder that his big sister hasn't ripped their Emissaries' throat out.

With her _teeth._

* * *

Peter barges into Talia's study, huffy and aggrieved and without much preamble. He still manages to be a study in manners, no matter how sleep-deprived he is, nothing excuses being _rude_ —he shuts the door soundly, sits in one of the brown-leather sofa chairs in front of her desk, crosses one leg over the other and smooths the wrinkles the posture tries to make in his pants before looking up at her faintly amused expression.

"Yes, little brother?"

"I'm being haunted," he tells her, because it's the only thing that makes _sense_. Her irises twitch, red flecks bleeding through hazel before she ruthlessly suppresses her wolf. He's had his problems with her throughout his life- because she's always been too _soft_ in her way, too ready to set issues aside or forgive them too easily- but her control is something he's always respected.

"Alright," she murmurs, setting her pen down and sitting back in her own chair, dark hair rustling around her mostly bare shoulders.

It's nearly midnight, and most of the rest of the Pack are sleeping, out, or in their own homes outside of the main house. Today was the fourth in an acute heatwave, and their air conditioner is an ancient thing that refuses to work on the best of days- they've got enough money to repair it, replace it, but they never have (he remembers the story his mother used to tell, about jamming a toy piece through the vents during a particularly boring summer, about her parents scolding her when it broke and telling her she would fix it on her own or suffer the heat without it, trying to get her to take responsibility for her actions. "But they were just as hot and sweaty as I was," she'd said, cackling, "and I was just as stubborn as they were. It's been finicky ever since.")- so all of their windows are open, as are the front and back doors- their fence-door counterparts remaining closed- to let in whatever air they can, any fleeting breeze welcome.

Talia looks smaller, here, spaghetti-strap tank top, hair up in a loose, messy french bun, sweat coloring her scent, skating down her olive skin, slouching a little in a regal chair she inherited from their father. Peter's always wondered what their enemies would say if they could see her like he does, his big sister, overworked, strong and powerful in her own way, immature, naive, and all forced-calm in others.

People talk of her like she's some _legendary_ thing, to trust, to respect, all because of her full-shift. But she's just a woman. Her soul is big enough to _overwhelm_ sometimes, and her tranquility can be something to behold, as can her fury, but she is still just... _herself_.

He doesn't blame them for losing sight of that, in the face of what she is. He loses sight of it, too—but, then, she is his elder sister, his Alpha, perhaps he has more of a right.

She rubs a weary hand over her face, just as tired as he is, and for a moment she looks so _human_ that he wants to _kill_ her for it.

"Maybe we should take you to a practitioner? Someone _other_ than Deaton. To—to-" she flicks her wrist in a sharp cutting motion- " _exorcize_ you, or something."

He hums a little, not agreeing or disagreeing.

A little girl laughs in the distance and he feels a hand with piercing nails squeeze his shoulder, a wisp of red hair lingering in his peripheral.

He doesn't know if an exorcist will be enough.

* * *

"I don't think I'm equipped to deal with this," the exorcist tells them, she's a short, thin, pale woman about his age, all ink-black hair, secretary glasses, gauges and snakebites and glittery septum piercing. Her voice is nasally, but surprisingly deep for someone so _small_.

She paces away from them, kneading a hand through her jaw-length hair, mussing up her bangs. The back room is separated from the rest of her shop by only a colorful curtain, and everything smells of incense and herbs and candles, Talia- with the stronger nose of an Alpha- has sneezed no less than eight times, and it's taking a lot of self-control for Peter to avoid the same.

"I'll give you the lay of the land, here, alright?" She waves a generalizing hand around the back room, the red pleather couch Peter and his sister are sitting on, the shelves, the fish tank, the mini-fridge, and the too-big mugs full of tea on the coffee table in front of them. "It may not look it, but I am _very_ good at my job, okay? Bogies and shit beyond the veil playing with people's delicate sensibilities is what I _do."_

"I'm not _delicate_ ," Peter snaps, irritated; Talia cuffs him lightly with a quick apology to the exorcist that's quickly shrugged off.

"It's cool, you're tired, you're freaked, bitchiness is an inevitable side-effect, I _get_ it. Like I was saying—this is my _niche_. And you've definitely got _somethin'_ brewing in your noggin', but..." She heaves a sigh and walks over to them, crouching, cat-like, in front of the coffee table, snatching one of the tea-filled mugs and taking a deep pull. She looks up at them over the rim of her glasses, setting the oversized cup down, the ceramic making a dull thud against the bare wood. "Dude," she begins, a little stiltedly, hands fidgeting around her cup, "if it was an anima, demon, dybbuk, spirit, of nearly _any_ kind I could probably take it, but it's..." She makes a sound in the back of her throat, between a sigh and a groan, rubbing her mouth with her fingers, thoughtful, frustrated.

The only sign of Talia's impatience is the way her claws have slipped out over her fingernails, tapping out a restless, rasping rhythm on her jeans, where Peter's built up a steady, irritated growl.

Mathilda looks at them both, and her crushed-velvet gray eyes glaze over—for a moment, Peter can see the woman from his dreams, stood elegantly behind the exorcist, hair and dress flowing in a ghost-wind. She smiles at him, eyes sparkling, presses a finger to her lips, shushing, before becoming wisps of swirling paint, a mist of indecipherable color, and then she's gone.

Mathilda blinks. Peter tries to remember how to breathe, feels a little more distanced from reality than he did a moment ago, a little more numb.

"It's not something I'm equipped to deal with," Mathilda repeats, and Talia clicks her teeth at the young woman, base and upset in a way she almost never is.

"Is there _nothing_ you can do?"

Peter wonders if what's been happening to him has distressed his Alpha more than she's let on. He's vaguely warmed by that, her concern, protectiveness, even if it's all seemingly impotent.

Mathilda grimaces, and that's answer enough, honestly.

* * *

(They go to others, witch-doctors and bone-women and exorcists of every practition, faith, and ability.

The response they get from each is essentially the same: there's nothing to be done, it isn't anything any of them have ever encountered, they're very sorry for Peter's predicament, but they're at a loss.)

* * *

Voluptuous, vivacious, volcanic, when he opens his eyes his nightmare-ghost is standing there like a natural disaster, smiling, the eye of every Gods be damned storm in the middle of a root-cellar, sunlight spilling all around her, gentle-hush, softening every edge with its' lulling glow.

"A young girl is going to die here soon," she says softly, like she's reading from a grocery list. "Or maybe not..." She trails off, looking into the middle-distance for a moment before she seems to shake herself, rubbing the swell of her belly, looking down at the child she will not bear with nurturing-sweet. "You played your part in her death, once, and told my husband the tale of it. You were an unreliable narrator, though, and he was always trying to weed the truth from your lies."

She turns, walks steadily and sedately over to the grotesquely winding roots, perches on three that curve and knob almost perfectly to seat her. "Now that I'm getting to witness it myself, he only really got close when he stopped resenting you and started thinking you might've really been _human_ before the fire." The word inspires its' reality and he feels himself _burning_ , his skin bubbles, his spit fizzes as his tongue turns to ash, as he melts away, and the pain is so _insurmountable_ , the raw, destructive agony, as he scents his own body becoming slop and char, the fury——

He blinks, breathes, and it's gone.

The woman is reaching through the under-limbs of the tree, now, shoulder deep and rummaging for something.

His blood still sizzles, and his heartbeat is ratcheted up, he fights not to tremble.

She grimaces as she pulls something from under a cluster of spidering roots, yanking it free from wherever it was stuck, returning with a mason jar, glass and crystal-clear despite the soil and foliage of where it was hidden. A fly buzzes within it.

The buzz becomes a sizzle-pop in the air, like bubblegum or fizz, like a too-hot sun beating against ancient-crumble tar, sweltering, and it seems to go on forever, a vastness of sound that's so _nearly_ indescribable, like the words for it are just on the tip of your tongue, clinging to the back of your teeth, and there's a frustration that comes with that, a second that wills itself into hours, such is its' irritation.

"Don't listen to it," the woman murmurs, but she sounds _deeply_ unconcerned about whether or not he actually _does_.

Peter's brain feels like it's about to _explode_ , and, with a hiss of discomfort, he covers his ears, which helps, if only marginally.

He feels glued to his place, stuck, as she unscrews the lid, drops it with a metallic clatter, reaches into the jar and extracts the bug with the tips of her sharp, baby-blue candy-gloss nails. He watches, distantly horrified, as she walks over to him, the juicy bug squirming, incapable of getting anywhere.

She plucks its' wings and legs, discarding them along with the jar, as she comes closer and closer still, the sound increasing, knocking a beat against his skull, his _soul_ , that's impossible to escape. Louder—louder—louder— the woman screams and it pierces through everything, but it's no solace, it's so much worse.

Pounding, penetrating, earth-shattering, _killing him_.

She squishes the thing between her nails, close enough that some of its' viscera splatters onto his face. She doesn't stop screaming.

He wakes up feeling disgusting and disturbed and nauseous. He barely makes it to the toilet before he's vomiting up last night's dinner.

One of the exorcists had told them it wasn't a _malevolent_ thing, whatever it was, that it seemed like _Pack_ , even, if you looked at it closely. He goes to the sink, swishes the sour out of his mouth, and fantasizes stabbing them in the throat a dozen or so times.

* * *

Peter's too old to be at a highschool, in any capacity, but Derek's been avoiding him, avoiding _all_ of them, and now is not the time for it.

There are other wolves on their territory—allies, yes, all of them neighbors and kindly, but one has lost his Beta to the hunters, and is agitated, wants to attack, while another wants to meet, peaceably, with the current head of the Argents, see if they can make a treaty, cut off the footholds of war. The Hales themselves have a treaty with the local Argents, Rohese, Claire, Victoria, her husband, Chris, and Donahue; it's been in place for three generations, and Peter wonders, idly, when he sees how absolutely bloodthirsty some of the young hunters are, how much longer it will last.

He fell in love with literature when he was very young, with the romance of history within the more ancient texts, the stratagems of battles long-past, the execution of recycled thought, an ouroboros, always gnawing at its' own tail, always with the same song, different verse.

Discrimination, bias, _fear of the unknown_ translating into ill-concieved _violence_. The rise, the fall, and so it inevitably goes.

Peace doesn't ever last long, humanity is a violent thing, and what are werewolves if not human? There are people who would argue with him on that, and he can feel his spirit, an animal, a _wolf_ , but just as he can scent the air, hear and taste things no human ever could, there is a baseline of _humanity_ about him, about _all_ of them. (The same people who would argue werewolves aren't human would argue that humans aren't monkeys, it's all a matter of evolution mingled with ignorance and hypocrisy.)

The tension and unease within their land, though, is inexorable, tangible, and Derek seeking solitude is... _unnerving_.

He knows Talia would've cornered her son sooner or later, but, honestly, she just doesn't have the _time_ right now—three other Packs are counting on her for guidance, and irritating her to hell and back by not _taking_ any of the advice they so belligerently _demand_. That was an actual quote. She's wearing _thin_.

Peter isn't helping matters by waking them all up in the small hours of the morning with his ear-splitting, terrified screams, but neither is Derek by playing keep-away.

Peter, exhausted, annoyed by _everything_ , tries to be gentle, but that soon turns into ribbing and sniping and teasing because, it turns out, the reason why Derek's been keeping his distance is because he's in _love_. Peter, inevitably, pushes too far, and though he feels guilty for it, lethargy hums in his bones, and he's not about to run after the sulky teenager just to apologize.

Supple arms sneak around his neck in the facsimile of a hug, a chilling voice, whispering, singing, _screaming_ , chides, all three-fold eery dissonance, "But you hurt his feelings, Peter."

"He needs to grow a thicker skin," Peter whispers, shaky, defensive, heart thudding too-slow in his chest, body prickling, like someone's frozen a thousand needles and stabbed them into every pore.

"Does he?" She asks, faintly, presses her cheek against his, curtains of strawberry-blonde hair spilling over his shoulder, growing darker, damper, like blood, like _fire_.

He feels over-warm, jittery, hollow, stands as quickly as he is able and runs after Derek to apologize because the need for Pack, for the touch of something _real_ is suddenly too fiercely overwhelming to ignore, besides, he _wasn't_ being serious, and eating crow is far better than facing his hallucination _alone_.

Derek seems upset, but he's won over when Peter offers to drive him to the arcade, spend the rest of the day with him, relaxing. (Derek knows as much about the nightmares as the rest of them do, knows that when Peter ran up to him, breathless, he smelled acrid with fear and yearning, his forgiveness is mingled with pity and Peter decides that, after he sends his nephew home, he's going to spend the night running in the woods, ridding Beacon Hills of its' surplus of deer.)

* * *

Satomi calls him—she will have no part in the playings of children, in how Ennis howls for retribution when his Beta was the one to start the fight, out of line and unsupervised, in the first place; in how Deucalion is being willfully naive with his vision, because there's a difference between optimism and outright obliviousness, just like there's a difference between being dead and not-dead; in how Kali is playing subservient to both of them, when she _knows better._

But she does have some tea on offer, for the hauntings of the mind, and, having heard his plight from Mathilda- who happens to be a friend of hers- is prepared to trade him some for one of the books he owns that she's had her eye on for the past two years, it's a favorite of his, and he'd been very reluctant to part with it, always denying her when she'd asked before.

He doesn't deny her this time, he's desperate for any sort of relief, and he can copy the book onto his computer, anyway.

* * *

For the first time, when he sleeps, there is only darkness, and when he wakes he's all fuzzy, hypersensitive, everything _feels_ more, but it's softer, too, tingling, white-noise.

He knows the full moon is at its' peak, can feel zher light tugging at his heart, pooling within him, making his wolf restless, but all of that is tranquilized when he sees her standing there, arms split open- dry, rusty- hair swaying, impeccably dressed, dazzling spring-grass eyes crinkled in a vague sort of smile. She reaches for him, relaxed, fingers curled, already, to take his hand, fingernails gleaming like drops of fragmented sky. Her palm feels like silk, always colder than he expects, her strength enough to pull him up and bring him astride her, whether or not that had been his intention.

They walk, slow, hand in hand, down the stairs, past packmates who are sleeping or lounging in the living room- Talia looks up from her conversation, but only briefly, frowning in concern before Phillip reins her back in with a question and a joke- into the Preserve where the more invigorated and whimsical of them are still running long after most of the others have tired.

(He hadn't run at all, his lethargy pervasive; that, combined with his increasing frustration, impotence, and persistently snappishly aggrieved state had made it seem better and kinder for all if he just slept through it.)

She leads him to that small clearing that proceeds the large stump, to a cellar door off to the side, down dusty, cobwebbed wooden stairs, into the root-cellar _under_ that stump. She looks at him, then, inescapable, letting go of his hand to cup his cheeks.

"I have been merciful," she tells him, her voice three-fold jarring as it always is, shrieking, whispering, speaking. "As merciful as I could be, which is more than I can say for how you treated me, when the tables were turned." She sighs, hums a little, nails scraping up the side of his face, into his hair.

He should be scared.

He isn't.

The nightmares he's had crackle like ice, melt, reshape, drift together until they make a sharp, painfully clear sort of sense.

She tugs on his hair, and his gaze refocuses on her, smiling, eyes alight with challenge.

"You know what to do, now, don't you, Peter?"

"Yes," he breathes, her smile grows teeth, steel, _bite_.

She scratches her nails back down his cheeks, five streaks of burning pain, blood, that heal almost before they form, and then she's _gone_.

His eyes drag toward the roots, to the fly buzzing in a mason jar.

He knows what to do.

* * *

·☥· **Act One** ·☥·

Put One Foot In Front Of The Other (Retrace Your Steps)

* * *

Stiles knocks back the bottle of whiskey and walks.

He doesn't know what propelled him to walk, really, beyond the quiet winds and the foggy dusk-damp sky. He can feel the telluric currents, stretching, flowing, beneath him, but the packbonds that once glowed, gossamer threads wound around his ribs, they're _gone_. Irrevocably broken, splintered and cauterized by death; he remembers Cora telling him that losing Pack was worse than losing family, that it was like losing a _limb_.

He'd believed her, he _had_ , but he hadn't _known_.

(It started with Claudia, it ended with Lydia, everyone he loved—dead. It took one month for it to happen, and another for him to shred apart the very molecules of every goddamned hunter involved.

He made them _suffer_ , and he was _glad_ when their blood dripped from his fingertips, when their screams echoed the ones they wrenched from Lydia's throat with every life they took.)

It's a _nice_ night.

Everything's just the right amount, the temperature, the breeze, the amount of water on the air, the sweet-bright of the stars in the sky.

He shouldn't be witnessing it, walking with limbs full of blood pumping from a beating heart. It should be Claudia, his little girl, his _baby girl_. Or _Scott_ , selfless and righteous and one of the most beautiful people the world had to offer. Isaac, Derek, Liam, Mason, Kira, Malia, Peter, Lydia... Allison.

His father, Scott's mother.

Any of them, _any of them_ would be more worthy.

He brings the mouth of the bottle to his lips, swallows down more, until the burn _aches_ , satisfies, makes everything just the slightest bit murkier, fuzzier, as he stumbles further into the wood.

Chris is still alive, helped him with the very last stint of it before fucking off back to france. There were no hard feelings about that, if anything, Chris understood what he was going through better than anyone, and he was... _comforting_ , while he was around.

Marin left when her brother died.

But the Beacon is _still_ a Beacon, and _someone_ needs to keep an eye on all the Supernatural Ward of Eichen bullshit, especially after everything they went through to sort it out. So, he stays. He lives. He works.

He drinks.

He's been named several things by the supernatural community and hunter community, both. Little Red strikes him as the most hilarious. Reaper. Healer. He who provides sanctuary. He's tied the territories neighboring Beacon Hills together again with duct-tape and sheer force of will; Satomi once told him she hasn't seen Hale territory like this since Talia was alive, and Deucalion... their tacit agreement to stay out of each other's way unless nastier things are going down is as good as they're going to get.

Some of the locals, humans, still know him as the son of the sheriff- a good man, who died on duty- but _most_ of them know him as the guy with the tragic backstory- four-year-old daughter dying a mere week before his best friend, three before his wife committed suicide, leaving him languishing in alcohol and _shady-ass_ acquaintances.

They look at him with the same mixture of distaste and pity they used to reserve for Derek, before he started dating Braeden and going to therapy.

(Braeden's with Cora in Brazil, staving off her grief with her sister-in-law. She hits him up with work sometimes; being a mercenary in-the-know is surprisingly lucrative.)

Joke's on them, he saves their asses nearly every other day.

He hiccups a little, chases that down with another swig from the bottle before his sight blurs, world tilting, head thudding down on wood, bottle slipping from his fingers, and—oh. _Oh._

The Nemeton purrs under him, the only bond he really has left, welcomes his presence, languorous, seeming to yawn and arch beneath him, like a cat seeking attention.

"Y'er a stump," he tells them, slapping his hand on the flat wood beneath him, hard and unforgiving, _dizzyingly_ vertical. " _In_ an'matha... _in_ animare- animatus- animat- uh. Y'know whad'I mean. How're you so... so... ugh-"

The Nemeton would like _blood_ sacrifices, thank you, and does not appreciate the sick he's heaved on their under-branches.

He murmurs a slurred apology, and he doesn't really catch their response as his vision swishes, the bubbled water-foam of a tide returning from the beach to the sea, flutters down into a spiraling, terrifying darkness.

Sleep will never be something he succumbs to _freely_ , and he fights to stay up, but the whiskey is a lullaby where the Nemeton is a cradle, and he's helpless to do anything but close his eyes and dream.

(Dream is too good a word for his nightmares. Nightmare is too good a word for his life.)

* * *

Peter kills a raven, hunts it down and snaps its' neck, guts it on the roots of the large stump, snaps its' wing, tears away its' humerus, places it with a small tck-ing sound into the mason jar beside the fly he'd killed, squished between his claws- he knows his nightmare-ghost helped him in killing it, he doesn't know _how_ , but he knows she _did_ \- along with a blood-soaked feather and a little flower he'd found in the hallowed meadow.

He places the jar, all of its' contents, under the roots of the tree; he's placed mirrors around the cellar, to capture the visage, the luminescence, of mother moon, to create a web of her light, all prismatic refraction, each mirror capturing a shard of her spirit, splintering it, multiplying it, condensing it into the saturated ray that falls on the glass container.

 _『I call to the Old Gods,』_ the woman begins, and he follows after her, repeating every word she says until their voices fall in synch, until her three-fold voice and his two-fold- human and wolf- are chanting:

_『May they hear my—her—his— **our** prayer;_  
_I call to the Spirit of the Nemeton;_  
_To the Mother, the Maiden, and the Crone;_  
_To the Furies, the Erinyes, the eternal sisters and all the rest;_  
_Reach through time, please, please bless us;_

_『I call to Chronos, Odin, and Khonsu;_  
_To save the lives of many, bring me—him—her— **us** only **one** ;_  
_We are your children;_  
_Grant us your mercy;_  
_Rend the will of time, create a paradox, bring us what is **mine.** 』_

The mason jar, the mirrors, all shatter—the jar like an explosion, and the mirrors daintily, delicately, with twisting, cavernous cracks, jagged edges of them clattering to the floor of the root-cellar. Quiet falls under the sudden rushing of his own blood, the surge of wind and power that gathers, crackles, _sings_.

"It's working," the woman says, and she sounds distantly amused by it all.

Peter's breath catches, holds.

There's a rustle, a _pop_ , and then the mason jar isn't there at _all_ , replaced by the man from his nightmares, except, he isn't _like_ the woman, there's a _reality_ about him, his quick-paced heart, the fine hairs on his arms rising with the electricity, magic, still in the air, the smell of him, rich-earth spice under enough alcohol to fill a goddamned pool.

"Oh, Stiles," the woman sighs, upset in an oddly calm way, but she's already becoming a swirl of mist, her mission done, the thread that had kept her here _cut_ with this ritual; he can feel her slipping away, it's a chill that evaporates from his bones, one he hadn't even realized was _clinging_ , and as it leaves, he feels numb, jelly-limbed shocky. But he can feel her residual command, emotion, that this man he just called out of time with her is someone to _take care of_.

That- Stiles?- that he's _important_.

_**『And even if he isn't, he's** interesting **. Take care of him, Peter; I promise you, it will be worth it.**_

_**『And I** will **be watching.』**_

* * *

He has his own apartment, within Beacon Hills- as do many of the Pack- though it's mostly relegated to storage and the few moments he needs privacy, and he's got the Pack house, but going to either place would require lugging this man through the Preserve, where vestiges of his Pack are still playing. He's spent, foggy, still half in a haze, he doesn't think he could handle the questions—not to mention, the other man _smells_. Bile and sour and whiskey all encumbering his natural scent, accented with a sharp sweat-smoke brine.

Which is to say: he'd rather not have him _right under his nose_ , thank you.

So he sits on the bottom-most steps that lead up and out of the root-cellar, holds tentative vigil.

He could still be hallucinating, maybe—except he's pretty sure he _knows_ the spell he just cast, or, at least, _facets_ of it. He thinks he may have, _seriously_ , pulled a man out of time. With the help of a ghost.

His brow furrows as he thinks back, a little more clear-headed, on everything they said and did to create this paradox, and realizes that he may've been underestimating the grandiose stump.

He'd known that their territory contained within it a Nemeton- Talia always gave a big speech on the first full moon of the year, about being its' _gaurdians_ , that they must protect each other, their territory, their people (every person in Beacon Hills was _in_ their territory, within its' sanctuary and thereby kept _safe_ ), and the beacon this little town was named for, no matter how many varied creatures they faced, they must stand strong, united, _Pack_ (he came by his flair for the dramatic honestly, let him tell you)- but only the Alpha and the Emissary knew where it was. What it manifested as.

He was Talia's Left Hand, certainly, but that didn't mean she entrusted him to all of her secrets, if anything, she entrusted him to _less_.

His blood-soaked hands and scar-tissue _blue-eyes_ didn't grant him much by way of favor, sibling bonds be damned.

The other man stirs a little, and Peter immediately snaps to attention. Skin like snow littered with droplets of sap, muscular in a lithe way, long and drawn and willowy, arms covered in delicate tattoos that appear to shift, ephemeral, when the man shivers. A deep, interrupting sort of breath, that seems almost too much, overindulging his lungs, before eyes like the tawny fur of a freshly killed deer open, wide, cutting and fragile at once.

"What the fuck," the man exhales. His voice is deep, airy, like smoked honey, gooey syrup, Peter thinks it's the kind of voice that would have endeared him immediately, were it not for the fact that nearly a year's worth of nightmares proceeded it.

Stiles- and Peter's _still_ having a hard time reconciling him with that name- shifts up, sobering quickly as he takes in his surroundings with a small grimace before those eyes land on Peter, fierce, demanding, widening in shock. "What the _fuck."_

Peter blinks at him, slowly, wearily, suspicion tingling beneath his blood, and then fizzling out under the pressure of the sheer _ridiculousness_ of it. "I would ask you the same thing," he says instead, "but I have a feeling you're as uninformed as I am."

"... I have a feeling _that's_ not entirely true," Stiles says, narrowing his eyes, but he's surprisingly... mellow, in his own unease. A little resigned, maybe. He grabs onto one of the hardier roots and pulls himself up to sitting with it, before murmuring something odd and _ethereal_ as he pets it, soothingly. "You always know _something_ , Peter. In this case-" he takes a deep breath, looks down, eyes going unfocused, glassy, like he's looking at something else entirely, beneath them, underground. He presses his palm to the floor, splayed out, and frowns deeply- "you might enlighten me as to what _year_ it is?"

"2004," Peter answers, a little too quickly for his own liking, before standing and moving to walk away. "Look," he decides, "I don't know why your wife posthumously decided to haunt me and force me to be your _time traveling valet_ , but I've been having nightmares for the past _year_ , and I'm _tired._ Do what you will—maybe you're important, maybe you're interesting, but you're _awake_ now; I'm _done_. I'm _tired_. And I'm going _home_ to get some Gods' damned _sleep."_

There's a little huff behind him.

"How do you know you won't just have more nightmares, zombiewolf?"

He doesn't, but he can _hope_.

(He'll wonder about the nickname later, after he's slept solidly and soundly for two whole days, armed with Satomi's tea and having _finished_ doing what the one haunting him wanted _done_. He'll wonder, and wonder, and wonder.)

* * *

Stiles has had an unstable relationship with reality ever since the Nogitsune.

Counting his fingers and reading more than was necessarily healthy and learning how to read in _every_ language he could manage so that foreign texts wouldn't throw him into panic attacks—that was just the start of it. Magic helped, checking in with his Bonds- all of which are lost, now- with the telluric currents and the Nemeton and the wards he'd put up around the territory he'd essentially inherited.

He has his coping mechanisms, but he also has bad days, backslides (during which alcohol is his best friend and he can only hope there's a family of wendigos, rogue hunters, a herd of selkies, or a clutch of harpies, _anything_ , trying to invade, or just on a terrifying warpath—something he can do with his _hands_ , kill, slaughter, occasionally help. He likes having something to _focus_ on).

No one _needs_ him, anymore, except for the tacit masses he saves by killing the thing that might've killed them down the line. It's monotonous, _dirty_ work, but it's the shit that needs doing, so.

He's still alive, isn't he? Might as well.

He doesn't know what kind of backslide _this_ is.

There are a few possibilities: this is some drunken fever dream; he got possessed, _again_ , and this is what his subconscious came up with when he got tossed into it by the thing that may or may not be dancing around causing havoc with his body right now (the Nogitsune was _not_ the last thing to possess him, even after learning more about his Spark—he's like _candy_ to these fuckers); he's dead, and this is the most twisted sort of hell good old Morningstar could come up with (in which case, really? _Really?_ Like, he's not _friends_ with the guy, more like... acquainted, occasional allies, but _still_ ); he's dead, and this is _Purgatory_ ; he's caught up in an illusion of some kind; it's real.

That last one is... well. He's _doubtful_ , okay?

(He still cleans up the telluric currents and blesses the Nemeton- purifying them from whatever stains the Nogitsune may've left, although the Nogitsune seems to be _gone_ , which is another reason why this is just way too good to be fucking true- reestablishing his rightful Bond with them, just in case.

His Bond with the Nemeton seems to swirl within him, questioning who he is, accepting him for what he is, and mildly amused by him all at once. They're vaguely thankful in an impertinent sort of way that he set both them and the ley-lines to rights, but that doesn't stop them essentially _'feeling him up'_ with their magical branches, twigs, leaves, whatever, all blunt, unapologetic, near _childish_ curiosity.

It's _unsettling_ how much _younger_ they feel. The difference is tangible, between _his_ Nemeton- soaked in the blood of _so many_ , as traumatized as he by it, a friend who was equal parts brusque and furious and protective, authoritative-compassion, who had as many bad days as he did, sometimes recoiling from him, hibernating within themselves and their own thoughts- and _this_ one.

The dichotomy is _heartbreaking_.)

He goes to his former teacher, first. The old adage, never trust a Druid? There's truth to it, he's got _miles_ of experience to back that up, but, despite his talking in riddles and using 'The Balance' as an excuse for basically _staying out of it_ , when him being more involved would've probably... Ugh. He's not going to go there.

Alan's a friend, is the thing. Sort of.

And because he's a Druid, he's special: he can't be replicated in an illusion, glamor, or projection of any kind _by_ any kind, no demon or homunculus could act well enough to pass, and, if he's stuck in his own mind, Stiles' subconscious would give itself away—he knows his own tells, by now. So whether Alan simply _isn't_ , or isn't _Alan-y_ enough, it'll give Stiles a clue, context, _something_.

He floats past Alan's wards with all the ease of a fish swimming through a familiar stream, nods to the few people in the waiting room, slips- silent, alert, and mildly detached from everything- into the back, where the druid is presiding over a wheezing miniature pig.

Alan looks up when Stiles comes in, and his placid expression falters for a moment, before resettling, however strained.

"I'm sorry," he says, without inflection, "but I'm working with a patient right now, and no one's allowed back here except for staff. You may wait in the _reception area_ , and I will see to you shortly."

"Doc, I'm either a walking, talking paradox, or I'm from another dimension, or _you're_ a trick of some kind, and until I figure out how this cookie crumbles, you're stuck with me," he walks sedately over to the drawer he knows Alan keeps a small flask of bourbon in- his magic took care of the hangover, and he's not nearly drunk enough for this- _wills_ the lock to think itself _un_ locked, and opens it to seek out his prize. He takes two swigs before he turns back to the man, who's watching him with a calculating gaze. Stiles watches right back.

After a moment, Alan frowns and decidedly returns to the pig, administering a shot to help it with whatever lung trouble its' having, soothing it calmly when it seems to get antsy. Stiles gulps down more of the... it's not bourbon, actually, something else, still alcoholic, though, and _strong_ , if the way it _burns_ is any indication.

"Not a demon," he observes, mostly to himself, taps the fingers of one hand against his leg, the other against the flask, counting. Alan shoots him a sharp look, and Stiles hums a little.

Alan's eyebrows steadily rise, bordering on judgemental.

"You could still be a purgatory-thing, not a homunculus—they're too impatient," he cocks his head, assessing, "lilim?"

The older man's eyes widen slightly, before narrowing. "I think..." Alan starts, haltingly, petting the pig and seeming to look at him, _really_ look. Stiles takes another drink, waits.

"I think I'm going to return Pidge to her owner-" Stiles snickers, mouthing _Pidge_ to himself. Who names a miniature pig _Pidge?_ Alan, beyond cocking a disapproving eyebrow, studiously ignores him- "and then, perhaps, you and I should talk."

Stiles shrugs, empties the flask into his gullet, goes in search of more.

Alan eyes him warily, but leaves him to it as he gentles the pig away from the operating room.

"Lucky, lucky," Stiles murmurs to himself when he finds a decanter full of dark red liquid in the cupboard underneath the more heavy-duty equipment. He slides the glass cork off and sniffs at it. Wine, laced with wolfsbane, probably a present for someone. He tells the wolfsbane it ought to be a flower, and it ought to be over _there_ , before testing the liquid on his tongue. It's far sweeter than he expected, than he'd usually _like_ , but he cares little.

The Nemeton feels his slow decline into inebriation, wonders at it, and almost... _worries_ for it. Huh.

Maybe they're not used to people getting drunk around them? The only contact they've had for about a century was with a few generations of Alphas and their Emissaries, interrupted by the odd Kitsune & Demon combo—he's guessing they haven't been around many people who get drunk on the daily.

He doesn't know how to respond to their reaction. _His_ Nemeton was... used to it? More understanding? Vaguely indifferent, to his vices.

He shrugs off their tentative worrying, cradles the Bond near to him- more out of habit, than anything- and they seem to settle, though they leave him with the stern impression that _'this is not over.'_

It's so reminiscent of Lydia before—before their daughter died, that he struggles to breathe for a moment, drowns the all-encompassing grief with another pull from the delicately decorative glass bottle.

When Alan strides back into the room and sees what he's drinking, he immediately begins to warn him off it, before Stiles shows him the perfectly intact flower that is no longer a part of the drink in any way whatsoever. The man goes blank at the flagrant display of power, and Stiles smirks slightly, recognizing the Druid's implacable aura for the _retreat into quick-thinking in an unexpected situation_ that it is.

"You're not a lilim, either," he notes, just this side of smug. He pokes Alan's cheek, earning himself a lightly quailing glare- it would have more effect, except it has _nothing_ on _Lyds'_ glare, not even Derek's Imposing Eyebrows™ could challenge one of his late wife's black looks. He takes advantage of the touch, though, flicking out a thread of his magic to get a read on Alan's. The Druid feels so _like **himself**_ , that Stiles is honestly a little stunned. "Maybe this _is_ real. Who'd'a thunk?"

Alan cycles through a few thoughts before finally settling on, "You're the one who disrupted the balance, aren't you?"

"No," Stiles tells him, then, "okay, well, maybe. But not really. And if this _is_ real, _actual_ time-travel or—or _whatever else_ , then I know enough that _restoring_ the balance should take-" he pauses to drink, gives himself a second or two to think- "three months."

There's a moment of tense silence.

"Stop giving me that scold-y judge-y look, dude, I had no say in this; my dead wife apparently haunted zombiewolf into doing a _spell_ , which—oh! _Ohhhhhhhh,"_ he snorts, because he should've realized, _"that's_ where the Nogitsune went. Probably. _If_ this is real. I'm still not entirely convinced."

"You aren't?" Alan intones, just this side of amused.

Stiles hums, slides himself up onto the metal counter, swinging his legs just for the feel of it. "I'm waffling," he admits, "scared that it is, scared that it isn't. All signs point to yes, so far, and I'm not sure how to feel about that." He runs a hand through his hair, realizing it's a little greasy. "Shit. I need a shower."

"Are you arrogant, or confident?" Alan wonders, leaning back against the wall, arms crossed, and Stiles stares blankly at him, not following. "About your skills," he clarifies, "about being able to restore the balance."

"Neither? It's more like... it needs to be done, right?"

"Yes," he says, sounding very sure, "balance needs to be restored."

"Cool. One way to do that would be to send me _back_ , although there would still be repercussions, and no thank you, anyway; another would be to kill baby-Stiles, to make _room_ for me, also no thank you. The _best_ way would be to do what I would've done anyway, and that'll take around three months."

"What 'would you have done anyway'?" Alan asks, sounding genuinely curious.

The answer to that is convoluted, and better left unspoken, for now. He slides off of the table, chugs the rest of the decanter's contents down, hands the glass bottle over and grins, "Thanks for the night-cap, Doc, it's been nice seein' you _alive_ and all, but I gotta go."

Alan sighs, heavily, put-upon, but he doesn't move to stop him, just says, "Changing the timeline, or interfering with a universe that is not your own, may have... consequences."

"Sure," Stiles agrees, without looking back at him, "but standing by and doing nothing for fear of rocking the boat? That isn't really my style. I'll try to keep you and the Nemeton satisfied with the balance of the balance, though, promise."

The _first_ thing he needs to do, is get some money, enough to get himself a motel or an apartment or something—preferably something with _good water pressure_.

He shoves his hands in his pockets and bites back a smile. It's _real_. He's not hallucinating or possessed or dead, he's—he still has to check the sequence of events that led up to _now_ , see if this Universe, for all that it seems similar, is still his. But as far as he can tell, he's been sent back in time.

The people he loves are dead, beyond that, their destinies have been unspun, unraveled. If he changes the things he wants to, they may never _become_ who he remembers, at all, because _those_ people- the people he fought with, argued with, _survived_ with- they're _gone_. But their _beginnings_ , their _potential_ is _alive_ , exists, here, _now_.

Scott, _Lydia_ , Boyd, Erica, Isaac, _Allison_ —all of the goddamned Hales. _Everyone_.

And he can save them, _keep them safe_.

It's an exhilarating, _happy_ thought, a rush of pleasure that he hasn't experienced since his daughter died.

But it snags, like skin against an uncovered nail, on that very last thought. Because _Claudia_. She never even _happened_ here, she didn't live or laugh or play or... die. There is no potential for her.

She's lost to him completely now, his little girl.

He wants to weep for that, or rob a liquor store, or _kill something_.

Thankfully, killing something is actually on his to-do list, and never let it be said that he isn't a good multi-tasker.

* * *

·☥· **Act Two** ·☥·

Wherein A Bargain Is Struck And A Conversation Is Had

* * *

The next time Peter meets the male counterpart to his nightmare-ghost, he's almost convinced himself that the ritual he'd taken part of had, in itself, been yet another in a long stream of nightmares. It's been a blissful, wonderful month of dreamless sleeping, which he attributed more to Satomi's tea than anything.

Talia had fussed over him a little, after the full moon, after him flat out _sleeping_ through two whole days, which had been gratifying, but also cloying and mildly patronizing; he'd only been able to put up with it for a week before telling her to fuck off as kindly as he could handle.

But Stiles is here. In his apartment. Sitting on the counter, legs swinging, _eating yogurt_.

He doesn't know what to do with the sight, honestly.

Pale-copper eyes look up at him, and for a second all he can see is a bloody, raw wound. "So," the other man begins, spoons another mouthful of sugary, blueberry yogurt into his mouth. "You said someone- presumably my wife- haunted you and... _coerced_ you into bringing me here. I'm kinda invested in knowing _more_ about that."

"And your curiosity led you to... break into my apartment," Peter drawls, dry.

Stiles shrugs, licks the spoon. "Yep," he smacks his lips, raises an eyebrow. "C'mon, dude, you're, like, the _evilist_ Hale, don't judge me; at least I used the _door."_

"There isn't a distinction, whether you used the door or the window, you still broke in," Peter points out, ignoring the preceding comment, for the moment, and crossing his arms over his chest. "I can judge you however much I please."

"Oh- _kay_ , or you can give me the deets, and I'll be out of your hair! No need to look at me judgingly, because I'll be _gone_ faster than you can say 'resurrected werewolf', hmm?"

Peter presses his lips together. Stiles waggles his eyebrows, and Peter narrows his eyes.

"I want payment," Peter decides.

Stiles groans, setting the yogurt beside him and sliding off the counter, _"'Quid pro quo, Clarice?'"_ He mutters, "Of fucking course you do, nothing's _ever_ free with you." Eyes like droplets of blood in a reckoning sandstorm search him, seem to take their time divesting him of all his armor, assessing. "Okay," the other man finally sighs, stepping closer, "I'm game, what do you want?"

"You're from the future," he says, and Stiles inclines his head by way of agreeing, Peter smiles, all teeth and intrigue, "I want to know about it."

Stiles stares at him for a moment, blinks, scoffs a little incredulous laugh. "That's... not what I was expecting, if I'm being honest." He tilts his head to the side, strands of bittersweet chocolate hair falling over his face, tendrils obscuring his eyes. "Are you sure that's your price? I'm planning on... well, making sure the future I _came_ from _never happens again."_

"I don't blame you, if what little I saw in my dreams is anywhere close to the truth of it. But, knowledge is power: if I know even a _tenth_ of what _might_ happen?" Peter smirks, lets it, his offer and the implication, both, hang.

"Being forewarned isn't always being forearmed. I feel like you of all people should know this."

"And I would like to know _why_ you feel that's something I should know," Peter intones, silky. "Besides, foresight is always better than hindsight."

Stiles exhales explosively, crosses his arms, tapping his fingers on his elbows in a counting sort of cadence. He turns his head to the side, eyelashes fluttering down as he tracks the light of a passing car reflecting on the kitchen tile.

"So, it's a 'you show me yours, I'll show you mine' situation?"

Peter huffs, but agrees, "If you want to put it _delicately_ , yes."

Stiles hisses out a small groan, like he doesn't _like_ this, but can't actually _object_ to it; the price is, apparently, worth the gain.

 _"Fine,"_ he grits in acquiescence, rubbing his hands roughly over his face, fisting them a little in his hair. "Please tell me you have booze somewhere around here."

Peter, who's had the sentence his nightmare-ghost left him with tapping a steady, annoying beat inside his head until now- _'he's **interesting** '_\- grins, vaguely victorious, and offers one of his better bottles of wine with a jovial, "As long as you don't mind a little aconite poisoning, I'm in good supply."

(The wolfsbane flower, blooming and beautiful and pristine, magically pulled out of the bottle like a bunny from a hat proved that _aconite poisoning_ wasn't something Stiles would need to worry about.)

* * *

Between them, they have eight years' give or take a few stories heard about events he wasn't involved in, and four incredibly vivid, recurring nightmares. It's surprisingly easy going getting Stiles to _start_ the whole process, since alcohol breeds loose tongues and the other man doesn't seem particularly fond of silence in the _first_ place—Peter is as stubborn as he is patient, and wasn't about to give _any_ information without at least a _taste_ of what he'd be given in turn.

He thinks he gets a little more than he bargained for when the first words out of Stiles' mouth are, "So, in my timeline, all but four of the Hales died in a really, _really_ terrible fire."

Peter chokes on air, before his wolf surges, wild and protective within him, growling, claws out, teeth bared, as if Stiles is a threat, as if his _words_ were a threat, when they were so clearly a simple statement of fact. Stiles cements that when he says, eyebrow cocked, a small amount of amusement toying with the edges of his smoke-timbre voice, "I was _ten_ at the time, dude. You can put all that shit away, I didn't have anything to do with it." He rearranges himself on the couch, curling his legs up to his chest, wrapping his arms loosely around them and planting his chin on his knees, the look he gives Peter searching and implacable. Peter's still growling, but he manages to ease his fangs back into his gums, force his claws to retreat.

The position Stiles is in is oddly childish, despite the intense maturity that surrounds him, the wan languidness colored with a chased sort of anguish, endured militantly, tempered by nothing, persevered through sheer force of will. He is all ill-begotten survival and trauma, his scent sallow with misery, but fresher and crisper than it was in that root-cellar, still sour with spirits but _clearer_ : ripe chili peppers sweating under the heat of a bright sun, freshly watered soil, fertile and dark and almost sweet with all its' rich-loam heavy.

The aroma is enough to rein Peter's wolf in further, enough to make his mouth water, too, but he swallows that down and rounds his coffee table to sit on the couch next to the other man.

"When?" He asks, still unacceptably shaky.

"Here? Ten months from now," for all that the answer comes easy, the tone for it is soft, sympathetic, but not pitying, just... a quiet understanding. "But it won't happen; I already told you, I'm going to do everything in my power to keep _my_ future from coming to light. You aren't going to lose your Pack, Peter, you aren't going to lose _anything."_

Peter's lips turn down as he side-eyes the person next to him, scents the air again, searches the supple-lithe form for any hint of recognition, but there's nothing- beyond what his nightmare-ghost showed him- that clicks as _familiar_. Even the _ridiculous_ name. Finally, too curious for his own good by half, he asks, "But my Pack has nothing to do with you, why would you care what happens to them?"

Stiles' eyes soften, if only slightly, blood swirling in sand until the grit in them is all but gone, "Because I care what happens to this _town_ , and you guys are a big part of that. And because, three of the four Hale survivors? They were my _friends_ before they died. That _includes_ you... well, you were maybe more of a creepy Uncle who had good moods every other tuesday and who we all suffered the company of because we'd already killed you once and it was far too much trouble to go through it _again_. Besides, you were _sort of_ helpful..." He grimaces a little, "Sometimes."

Peter is baffled, mildly appalled, and entirely too intrigued, Stiles, catching the look, smirks at him.

"If you can keep your claws in check, zombiewolf, I'll tell you the rest-" he goes a little somber here, a note darker- "as per our agreement."

"As per our agreement," Peter repeats softly, and Stiles smiles at him with enough fragility to make it ache.

* * *

What Stiles knows of the Hale fire and of the Hales prior to it and six years after it, he knows mostly second-hand, but with thorough research and intimate relationships to back it all up. The Peter he'd known was a narcissist who'd no sooner tell the truth than allow himself to have anything less than an upper hand, so everything he'd said was to be taken with a grain of salt. The _Derek_ he'd known- spent quite a few of his formative years 'growing up with' (if you could call it that)- was all lock-jaw trepidation, shame and guilt and anger, enough to put a lesser man down; even after the therapy and the reintroduction to healthy, loving relationships via Braeden, the guy _still_ had a hard time talking, but he'd opened up to Stiles, once or twice, enough to give him more information than he'd had before, enough to help him make more of a whole out of the pieces he'd gathered.

And Cora... Cora had asked her Alpha, the one she'd found in Brazil, to take the memory of the fire, of the Bonds breaking. She'd wanted to keep what little she'd had left of her family, but not... not that. Stiles couldn't blame her, and he'd never asked or pushed beyond that.

He knows marginally less about Paige, the Alphas' meeting with Talia, and Deucalion's meeting with Gerard, but he knows _enough_ to know that he'd been dropped into the timeline a few months prior to those events. He's used to dealing with things in a rush, though, and already has some vague plans in place for them.

Lucky for him, despite being around three fourths more sane than the Peter he _knew_ , pre-fire Peter is just as vain, which is to say, he likes the sound of his own voice. It doesn't hurt that he's just as snarky, and has sense enough for gallows' humor—because, yes, these situations were shitty, and yes, to Stiles, everyone was already dead, but walking on eggshells is _exhausting_ , and laughter is supposedly the best medicine, right?

Point being, just having someone who is _involved_ in it all, and not necessarily withholding, helps to complete the narrative.

As he speaks about Derek's relationship with Paige, and how Derek felt pressured, teased, manipulated, whatever, by Peter during it, Peter explains his own experiences, his own distractions, and by the time Stiles gets to the point where Derek mercy-kills his first love after- with a convoluted sense of insecurity- getting Ennis to give her the Bite, Peter looks absolutely _gutted_ , horror-stricken, and just this side of ruefully livid with both his nephew, and, surprisingly, himself.

"I should've seen it, paid more attention, _stopped_ it, not _encouraged it_ by being—" "An ass?" A look, cold enough to cut glass, and a growl, like shredded gravel, before a begrudging, gritted, _"Yes."_

As he speaks about Talia and the other Alphas, Peter ends up reluctantly filling him in on the more political side of it all, then, on _his_ role in it, as Talia's Left Hand. Talia, trusted advisor, simply because of a rare ability passed down through bloodlines, the Hale Alpha-spark a decidedly old-world thing, kept and honed and honored- Stiles knows there's more to it than that, but Peter doesn't seem inclined to tell him, and he isn't inclined to pick that battle; not just yet, not when there's a barely concealed suspicion within the both of them toward each other, not when they're balancing on a tightrope of mistrust and tentative transaction- his elder sister, at the helm of this territory, holds the whole region together: four counties and all the treaties within and with their neighbors, besides.

Siddhartha County being Ito Packlands (though the city of St Jude is held by a werelion Pride), Beacon County being Hale Packlands, Haven County belonging to Kali (via the cities of Refugio Lunar and Meadow Haven) and Ennis' (via that of Lloviendo Refugio) Packs, and Clymene Lake County to Deucalion- Satomi's territory the largest and Deuc's the smallest, but none of them particularly big in the grand scheme of things. Sacramento County is a close neighbor, a region of big-city Packs with a Baba Yaga type, crazy cat lady werewolf (oh, the irony) as its' sorta sovereign. She and Talia meet once a year to make sure everything's in order, that no treaties have been broken, that no one's misbehaving.

The _scope_ of it is pretty incredible, bigger than he'd realized even when _he_ was the one manning most of Beacon Hills' supernatural bullshit. That Talia, with Peter at her Left and her Mate at her Right, is able to handle it all is pretty fucking admirable. Even Peter seems to respect her, though it's obvious he's got... _issues_ with her.

She inherited her throne, her power, and her abilities, but she utilized them all to the best of her abilities, and has maintained the peace their _grandparents_ secured for the nearly two decades she's had them.

Unfortunately, all too often, where there is a big supernatural presence, there is a big hunter presence—the Argents have been as much the lifeblood of Beacon County as the Hales have for the past five generations, and it's only been within the past two or three that an accord has been granted. If they all follow the Code and the treaty, they'll be fine, to an extent.

The treaty is upheld by the Hale Alphas and the Argent Matriarchs, only recently did Gerard's wife die, allowing him to become Patriarch regent until such a time as Victoria had a justifiable amount of training—since she married into the position, and wasn't _born_ to it. Which begs a question Stiles has had for a long time, why not Kate?

Primogeniture Matriarchy with weirdly patriarchal rules that insist, if the eldest born is a son, his wife take the seat, and that all children after the firstborn are to be trained as soldiers regardless of gender- though females are, still, more the strategists and leaders where men are more the foot-soldiers and followers- for 1,000$, Tim.

("Jesus Christ, that's... a convoluted mess."

"I'm _entirely_ in agreement with you, there.")

This all, of course, slots a pretty big puzzle piece into place, though; Gerard, who is the source of Kate's psycho-fanaticism in the first place, is likely the one who ordered the hit on the Hales, using his own daughter and varying degrees of subterfuge to get rid of the Pack without- as far as anyone would've been able to tell- breaking the treaty, thereby flying under the Council's radar, and capable of moving on, happy in his own slaked bloodlust. The disturbing skeeviness of it all is... epic.

Stiles details, then, all that he knows about the Hale fire, Kate seducing Derek while he was still reeling from trauma, using his clothes to cover her scent, using information he unwittingly gave her to trap them all with mountain ash around the house and the tunnels. He explains who was involved and why, that it was all a prelude to the horror-fest that was his life.

With a soft sigh, he looks at the empty bottle in his lap and says, "I'm still not drunk enough for this... And I think it's your turn, by now. Definitely."

Peter gentles the bottle out of his hands, looking a little tormented, a little like he wants to dig his claws into something and make it _scream_. "Definitely," he agrees, and Stiles wonders if he's relieved to have ripped this particular bandaid off.

Hearing the terrifying tale of how your whole Pack could be slaughtered in one night is no walk in the park, after all.

* * *

It doesn't take Peter very long to regale Stiles with the tale of his first nightmare, and by the time he's done, the other man has curled further into himself, breathing in shaken, small, wounded gasps.

"That was... it was her baby shower," Stiles explains, voice flooded with emotion, water-logged and sticking in his throat, halting. Brine sweeps up enchanting smoke-silk, grilling peppers mingled with the scent of loam. "She showed you the last time we were all... It was the last time."

He sucks in a sharp breath and stands, abruptly, digging the palms of his hands into his eyes hard enough that Peter can _hear_ it. The other man stalks away from the couch to start pacing the length of the living room, snatching the second bottle of wine Peter's gotten out tonight and taking a deep pull before saying, "I know you probably want to know why she thought haunting you like that would've been _payback_ , but we're not there yet."

"No?"

"No. First I need to tell you what you _were_ , what you _became_ after the fire." Stiles stops to look at him, then, red-rimmed eyes and flushed, tear-soaked cheeks, quivering, something manic, half _wild_ about him, in every straining muscle, tense movement, like he's two seconds away from running away or screaming or lunging, two seconds away from losing every ounce of control he has. His seams are _frayed_.

"Did I turn into a unicorn?" Peter asks dryly, and Stiles glares at him for a moment before laughter bubbles up, unbidden, nearly unwilling, and he looks so _surprised_ at the sound, his shock dimming it for a moment before it bursts through with even more trembling ferocity. A long, thin, willowy hand curls into a soft fist over his mouth, and he's shaking, frangible, more tears falling, but the copper of his eyes are _glowing_ , crinkling around the edges and scrunched with mirth.

"No," Stiles chokes, chuckling wetly. "No, fuck you, a unicorn? What, like, Rainbowcreep? Zombiesparkle?"

"Moondancer," Peter suggests with a prim shrug, and delights in the entirely undignified noise _that_ pulls out of the other man, who doubles over, giggling and breathless, never unbridled- the jagged edges of him pinning and restraining- but _close_.

"Oh my God, Sassaffron," Stiles hiccups, then guffaws, and Peter raises an eyebrow at him, because that one's just _ridiculous_. Stiles ignores him, for the moment, takes another, distracted swig of the wine before walking back to the couch and messing with the throw-pillows until they're to his satisfaction, retaking his seat with a soft huff. He takes a deep breath, then, like he's steeling himself, and the exhale seems to drain him of so much _life_ , the brightness of the room goes with it, returns to some gray-fog sort of somber.

"You have to understand, you were the _only_ person who was _inside_ the house when the fire happened that survived. You bore _witness_ to it all, you _burned **with** them."_ Stiles pauses to let that sink in, Peter grinds his teeth, swallows, tries his best not to envision it. Somehow the thought, devastating and sickening, is like quick-sand, sucking him in, smothering him with the helplessness of it. He squeezes his eyes shut, imagines, helplessly, what his families' screams might sound like, as every packbond snapped, as the fire swallowed them all whole. "And then," he says this softly, _so_ softly, that if Peter were human he's not sure he would've heard it, "they abandoned you."

Peter sucks in a sharp breath, eyes flashing open to stare, dumbfounded and incredulous. Stiles offers him a battered, weak, fleeting smile.

"Cora was just a child," he explains, "she didn't know what was going on, and she wasn't old enough to feel the Pack-bonds that were still _there_ through the raw, bloody wounds that were the ones she'd _just **lost**_.

"Derek was... _guilty_. Even when _I_ met him, six years after it all, he..." Stiles shakes his head a little, "He never told her- Laura- about _Kate_ , he thought she'd _condemn_ him, like he condemned _himself_ , and, so, when she- only _nineteen_ \- inherited the Alpha-spark, all that responsibility, all that _tragedy_ , and decided that _running_ was the only option- the only way for them to avoid child protective services, hunters, _everything_ \- he went with her, said nothing, even though he knew it meant leaving you alone and unprotected and _without your Pack_ in the long-term care ward.

"Because you _weren't healing_ , Peter, you were catatonic and they were just _kids_ , they didn't fucking know what they were doing. But... you must know what happens next? They left you for _six years_ , trying so desperately to heal, traumatized and _alone_ , never _once_ touched by your new Alpha, and a wolf that neglected can only become one thing, Peter."

"I went Omega," Peter realizes, a keen, destructive, bitter sort of pain clawing violently, relentlessly through him. "I went _feral."_

Stiles nods, eyes wide and utterly sad, "Your night nurse saw you turn on one of the full moons, and... she was a sociopath or something, you killed her as soon as you got the chance, and you never killed _anyone_ without reason. She'd let you out, when your wolf surfaced, and during one of those times, you killed a deer, carved the spiral for vendetta into it—the act, on your part, was mindless, but Laura was still, technically, the _Hale Alpha_ , and Beacon Hills was her territory. The former Hale Emissary, he'd retired, but... he didn't know, exactly, what was going on, just that it didn't bode well, so he contacted her, sent her a letter, gave her a call, told her it was her _responsibility."_

Peter digs his claws into his palms, lets out a shuddering breath. He thinks he can see where this is going and he _hates_ it, he _hates himself_ —what he could _become_ , what he is capable of, what he's always _needed_ to be capable of in order to be a good Left Hand.

"So, she came, and, by chance, came across some information that brought who might've killed her Pack to light—which we'll get to later, it isn't important right now." Stiles sighs, runs his hands through his hair and hunches over to let his elbows rest on his knees, the bottle of wine on the cherrywood floor between his bare feet. "She went to visit you, at the hospital, night before the full moon. Next night, she walks through the preserve, _alone_ , and your nurse lets your wolf out. Insanity and instinct combined, man, all you knew was that there was a strange Alpha in your territory and you had her scent."

"I killed her, didn't I?"

"Yeah, dude," Stiles tells him, blunt with an undercurrent of sympathy, "ripped her in half."

_"Fuck."_

"Mmm. The rest of this will be easier, probably; less about the Pack you _know_ , and more about the Pack you haven't had the chance to meet," Stiles murmurs, tacitly consoling.

Peter... doesn't know how to feel about that. There's an innate, if subtle, selflessness in that statement that he doesn't know how to parse, and part of him wants to shake the other man, or knock him upside the head a few times, because what he just said implies that _Peter's_ pain in this is more important than _his own_ , and that isn't something Peter can understand, let alone _reconcile_ with. It's more, even, than it being a kind of consideration he would never be capable of, it's a kind of consideration he's almost never been _shown_ , something he'd barely expect from his own family let alone a near _stranger_.

Another part of him just feels lost in the face of the sincerity of it.

There's a little clatter, glass against hardwood, and a swishing of liquid as Stiles picks up the bottle, already more than half empty, and swallows down far too much in succession, before replacing it on the floor, resting his forehead in his hand. The living room is dark, only the small oven light and the streetlights from outside illuminating anything, and Stiles seems saturated in all that ink-shadow, here, made heavy and encumbered by it, a deep-well of heartbreak in the calm, resigned susurrus of his breath.

And Peter thinks of his nightmares, thinks of the deaths that must haunt this man, the deaths he's planning on preventing Peter from feeling, everything he must be planning to change, alone and unanchored. It seems enormous, really, when you think of it like that.

"I was the sheriff's kid," Stiles says, and his grip around the neck of the bottle tightens to the point that Peter can hear the glass creak, whisper a future of being cracked, shattered, "he's just a Deputy, now, but. I've _always_ helped him with cases, whether it was because he was too drunk or in too deep, and I've always been... _curious_. Nosy. So when a call came in that they'd found a body, but only _half_ , I thought it would be fun to go looking, and, y'know, if we _found_ it. Bonus.

"So I dragged my best friend, my _brother_ , into the woods in the middle of the night. In the end, I got caught by my dad for being an idiot, and my brother got Bitten, and we both got thrown into this... this _mess._ We'd only _just_ had our sixteenth birthdays. We were up shit-creek without a goddamn paddle, without a manual for the boat, _without any knowledge whatsoever._ But we... we'd survived, and gotten _good_ at it, up until the very end."

Stiles tilts the bottle back up to his mouth and chugs all there is left, before getting up to look for _more_. "I think it's your turn, now," he decides, and Peter's inclined to agree.

* * *

Stiles gets through Peter's recounting of his dream-vision of Lydia's death with a sort of numbed, bleeding out kind of stoicism, after which all he can really manage to say is her name, since he'd noticed Peter calling her his 'nightmare-ghost', which... distanced it, a little, from the horrifying reality, but not by much.

Silence gathers like water in a rain catcher, until it's filled to overflowing, and then it just seems to settle. The depth of it, the ache of it, is overwhelming, too much to wade through, to _breathe_ through.

Stiles is the one to break it, incapable of letting it _rest_. Peter stays still and quiet for Stiles' retelling of that first year, the rogue Alpha's killing spree, the Romeo and Juliet love story, a mystery solved, Kate Argent slaughtered, and a too-traumatized man killing what he is sure is the last member of his family, earning a mild amount of resentment from the newly turned Beta who'd thought that that death would've earned him a cure; Derek Biting Jackson where Peter Bit Lydia, creating yet another conflictuous mystery when the Kanima was born from _one_ of them, and nobody knew _which_ , when Scott thought that Derek Biting innocents, bringing them into this world was a _Bad Idea_ , and that _saving_ the Kanima rather than _killing_ it was the _Right Thing To Do_.

Stiles doesn't explain the bitterness in his voice- because for all the mistakes they _all_ made, it was a shit-storm of a situation, they were kids who didn't know any better, and he was as implicit as anyone; no point in crying over _that_ spilled milk, after all this time- and Peter doesn't ask. Stiles negates to mention the 'being tortured by Gerard' thing as well, skates over it and flirts around it with his words, because no one ever knew he was tortured in his first life, and he isn't about to let go of that secret _now_.

"That," Peter breathes when he's finished, "is a _lot_ for a year."

Stiles shrugs, "It gets worse before it gets better."

Peter looks vaguely dazed by the ominous reassurance, ends up saying, dry as the desert, _"Of course_ it does." And Stiles finds it within him to chuckle at the tone, for all that it's soft and jagged and quickly lost from him.

It only takes a minute or so more to get through what his Peter did to Lydia, right before the conclusion, in order to resurrect himself, and the reason why employing the 'were this way would've been- _rightly_ \- just desserts. He also, deliberately, dictates Derek's loss of physical autonomy by Peter's hand, and then mere hours later by Gerard's (yes, Scott committed the physical act, but he was thoroughly mind-raped into that position by a pathological psychopath), more because he feels it _needs to be fucking said_ , than anything else.

Stiles knows, by his body language, by the tense, strained expression Peter's wearing, that the next nightmare he has to share will be——

So he puts it off, even though a break in his own storytelling might be better, because there's a churning in his gut telling him he doesn't _want_ to hear this, even though he knows he _needs_ to.

He moves on, with quick summarization of all that he remembers, to the second year, touching back on Deucalion, who's already planning to set up a peace-meeting with Gerard in this timeline, and how well it worked out for him in _Stiles'_ time, and what he did _after_ , to his Pack, convincing Kali and Ennis to do the same to _theirs_. The blind, insane _Demon Wolf_ , Alpha of the Alphas in his own, bludgeoning, brutalizing Alpha Pack; a Pack which harrassed them, stole three of Derek's Betas and kidnapped Cora when she came into town chasing the tail of a rumor about her brother. They played at wanting Derek, when in truth they were there for Scott, who had the potential to become something no one has seen for over two thousand years:

A True Alpha.

Coasting alongside the Alpha Pack, the Emissary that Kali didn't truly kill, Julia Baccari, who, in her quest for revenge, became a Darach, Jennifer Blake—he notes, here, that she only managed to survive Kali's attack by utilizing the Nemeton, which was more powerful in the _darker_ ways because of Paige's unwitting sacrifice, and that she decided, after killing three virgins (her first in a sequence of sacrifices meant to enable her victory over the Alpha Pack), that using her newfound seductress powers on Derek would be the thing to do. Because _why not_ kick him while he's down?

Peter actually seems faintly amused by his distracted ramblings, "You've really got a chip on your shoulder about my nephew, don't you?"

Stiles sighs, "It's more like... it took us too fucking long to really be friends, and it took _me_ too fucking long to put together all the shit that was happening to him, _how_ it was affecting him. I guess I'm just pissed at myself for not doing more."

Peter blinks at him, slowly. "You were _seventeen_ , and you were all being hounded by a _Pack of Alphas_ , what on earth were you _supposed_ to do? What _could_ you have done?"

Stiles lifts a shoulder in a short shrug, and turns away from the other man. "It doesn't matter, now. It hasn't— _won't_ happen."

He trudges forward, even though he's on his last reserves of emotional _capacity_ for this, even though he's tilting from buzzed to full-on drunk—wraps it all up in a pretty little bow: Scott became a True Alpha, Derek lost his Alphahood saving Cora, Kali and Ennis wound up dead, Deuc got his eyesight back and got a chance at redemption, and Peter killed Jennifer, spilled her blood right over the Nemeton, allowing him to regain some of the power he'd lost doing the Death Tango.

 _"Death Tango_ , Stiles? Really?"

"Shut up, asshole."

"In this case, I think I'll have to deny you the _tragedy_ of my silence, as I'm quite sure it's my turn."

Stiles spares him a glance, small and fretful. "And we're almost out of booze."

Peter smiles, and there's a silent apology in there, Stiles can _see_ it. It's disquieting on the face of this man, who he'd only ever known to be a manipulative, narcissistic, serial-killing psychopath, for all that he was reformed (though he backslid often).

He drags his hands over his face and in a moment of not-entirely-sober, all too vivid vulnerability, tilts sideways, lets himself fall gracelessly, slumping into the couch, head landing in a _very_ surprised Peter's lap. He curls a trembling hand over Peter's knee, digging his fingers into the cloth there. "Just—get on with it."

There's a dry, clicking swallow, a moment of perilous hesitation, before hands land in his hair, on his shoulder, gentler than they have any right to be, considering the man they belong to.

Stiles closes his eyes, then, and breathes through the sharp, _terrible_ , overwhelming grief that pulls him under its' merciless tide, gorges on his soul, as Peter speaks slowly but concisely about a nightmarish hell-scape version of his little girl's death. God, it _hurts_ to get through, to listen to it in its' entirety, and he lets himself weep when it gets too much _not_ to, lets it wash over him, surrenders to it, gives himself over to the empty, the dark, the helplessness, lets Peter take over, hold him through it, inexplicable and unknowingly serendipitous.

There's no more talking left in him tonight, the sun is already eating away at the dregs of night, and before Stiles came here he'd killed over a dozen hunters connected to a rogue hunting clan, collected the bounty, and taken a shower—he hasn't slept for a week, and it's been a long day besides.

So when sleep comes- guided by hands tugging through his tangles, running a soothing line up and down his arm- he doesn't have it in him to fight it.

* * *

They're not finished, Peter knows, but what they needed to share took a... toll. It was harrowing in the most wretched, soul-shattering ways.

Falling asleep curled around his conversation partner was practically inevitable; honestly, he should've seen it coming. Perhaps, too, he should've seen waking up alone without so much as a note goodbye.

* * *

·☥· **Act Three** ·☥·

In Which Stiles Is A Stray Cat

* * *

"I think we need to keep an eye on the Argents," Peter tells her, leaning against the kitchen counter as she preps food for dinner, watching her carefully. There's something oddly implacable about him—there _has_ been for awhile, the bite of a year spent sleep-deprived and tormented by nightmares bleeding through, but it's _stronger_ , now. Permeated.

Peter's always been a caustic, acerbic bastard; he teases, is sometimes unwittingly cruel, and is always riding on this tide of cool anger, ice that hasn't yet frozen, an unsharpened blade, all youth fueled hubris and low-simmer fury. It's when he's being innocent, entirely too helpful, or a mask of charm and wit that you know he's upset with you, dry, blunt, and quick, with a puckish smile and an overly debonair drama is his version of loving. Sweetness from him is more hurtful than snarking jibes, because it's an _act_ , it's him putting on a mask, creating distance, _defending himself_ from you. It takes a lot to be someone Peter trusts, even more to be someone he considers precious, and Talia knows he teeters on that line when it comes to her.

She knows it's because she's his Alpha, and he's her Left Hand, because, though she's the one who has to make the hard decisions, _he's_ the one- more often than not- who has to carry them out. If her Alphahood were taken from her today, her Beta eyes would still shine that brilliant, innocent Gold, where his are forever seared Blue. She thinks he respects her as much as he resents her, and she thinks he blames her for things she hasn't even noticed, weaknesses only he can see.

They're still brother and sister, but it's been a long time since they've been _friends_ —and they _were_ friends, once. Maybe that's what hurts the most.

While the nightmares were prevalent he was so utterly submerged in _tired_ that it was all she could read in the lines of his body, the oddly defiant set of his jaw; all she'd known then was that he was fighting, losing, and at the same time that he was completely furious about it, he was also terrified in a bewildered, succumbing sort of way that, in turn, had terrified her.

Now, though, after Satomi's tea has seemingly all but cured him, there's... a _veil_ there, a shift. And she can't tell if it's because he's growing up in hidden, quiet places, where she can't see, or if it's something else, if it's their roles estranging them further. The very idea leaves her feeling a surge of disquieting dismay, devastation, that's hard to tamp down.

He even _smells_ vaguely unfamiliar, scent tinted with gypsy wine and something earthy, crisp, and spice-smoke.

Her throat feels tight, but still, she asks, "Why? Do you think they're up to something?"

He looks at her, almost clinically assessing, and there's this flicker in his eyes, like he's judging whether or not she's worthy of the information he has. Once, she would've thought he'd have taken a sadistic glee from that, from having power over her commensurate knowledge, and maybe he _would've_ , when he was _twelve_ , but as her Left Hand it's his job to advise her in matters of war, to decide how much he tells her will actually be _productive_ for her to know. It isn't a job she envies, and, honestly, she doesn't think he envies her her position, either, though he may think she isn't fit for it, may feel vexed by his place in her Pack, in her _family_.

She wonders when he grew up, when he became so much more than her little brother; wonders how she missed it, if he'll ever forgive her for it.

"I think Gerard's dangerous," he answers, finally, "and I think he's poison. It wouldn't do us any good to be idle." He lowers his eyes, brow furrowed, "Perhaps nothing will come of it, perhaps..." He chews on thoughts that seem vastly complicated, then shakes his head, and flashes her a smile that makes uneasiness churn, acidic, in her gut. "I'm just saying we should watch them."

She hesitates, even though she shouldn't, even though there's _no **reason** to_, even though it makes a small, resigned kind of hurt curl in her brother's eyes and settle there like the winter of his irises are its' _home_.

She sucks a little breath in through her teeth, dries her hands on the washcloth and turns to give him her full attention.

"Then we'll watch them."

* * *

Peter, as mentioned previously, doesn't often go to his apartment.

His Pack is as troublesome as it is big, and although many who aren't a part of the core family either live in other territories or live far enough away from the node to not be so problematic, whenever he is home, it's _harrowing_. There's Talia, and her emotionally fumbling, conversationally clumsy Mate, her eldest, Phillip, then Laura, Derek, the twins, and baby Michael, along with their cousin Connor and a few distant relatives that are closer in terms of Pack. Too many people, all of them with their own intricate needs and wants and expectations of him, judgments _on_ him, fear of what he is- his wolf's eyes, his role- and anger in the face of that fear.

He cleaves to them as much as he hates them for being something- people- he _needs_ to cleave to, for being weak enough to _want_ their presence, and he indulges himself, some days, in blaming them for something that's entirely his own fault simply because it's easier.

Like killing things is easy for him. _Too_ easy. He knows what it is to get drunk on the rich-sweet of blood and feel the ecstasy of having someone's _life in your hands_ , to become, in that moment, bigger than their faith, bigger than their trivial needs and wants and plans and ideals, all of their attention so acutely centered on you, their whole destiny a thing you get to decide, a choice you hold over them as sharply as a guillotine. And they look at you, and they beg, or they know, and you _take_ , and it is done.

It's so much easier the second time, the third, the fourth; it becomes trivial, boring. Grandmother Death favors us all, some sooner than others, and each person he gave to her he was well within his right to, well within his _Pack's_ right to.

(He has only ever killed two without being ordered to by his Alpha, a little girl, possessed, who would've killed everyone if they had taken the time to save her, who Talia could not think objectively about, not when she had her _own_ little girl back home- Peter had only been fourteen, it was the first thing he'd done as her Left Hand, it was the thing that stained his soul and washed his Gold eyes _Blue_ \- and another that he doesn't let himself think about, ever.)

There are days when the kids and the interference makes it too hard to concentrate- he's got a lucrative information trading business and college classwork and _things to do_ , that grubby little hands and overly enthusiastic nieces and nephews have absolutely no respect for- and on those days he'll go to some quiet little family-owned diner or coffee shop to just _get things **done**_ , before going back home.

There are days when the sheer mass of chaos and people gets too much, when his wolf digs its' claws into him and _gnaws_ ; on those days, he rides that tide, goes to the Preserve and hunts down a meal, kills small prey-animals that mean little in the grand scheme of things, that he doesn't have to wonder over his own moral ineptitude for.

Then, there are the days when he sees and scents his Pack's wariness of him, when he _feels_ their obligation under every smile and look and touch, and it _grates_. Days when he has spent every ounce of himself and _more_ to see them all safe, and all he wants, _all he wants_ , is someone to tell him it's _alright_ , now. He did _well_ , the fighting's _over_ , and, no, he is _not_ a monster.

Perhaps all he wants is for someone to tell him they still love him, even though he is.

And _that_ is the _weakest_ , most disgustingly self-pitying side of himself, the part of himself he loathes, the part he would wrench away and shred until he had the sticky viscera of it underneath his claws, the flawed frailty crunching like bone between his fangs, the whole of it _divorced_ from him—and he knows (he _thinks_ he knows) that he would be better for it. _Stronger_. But it lingers, muted, a hollow in the very core of him, humming until it is the vibration in his bones, the pounding in his head, the aching in his feet, and the howling song his wolf wants _desperately_ to sing.

On those days he hides, with all the tormented will of a coward who resents his own cowardice. On those days, he goes to his apartment and closes his eyes and ignores everything for the sake of his own fragile (so fragile, so _fucking_ fragile) sanity.

He's on his last fucking thread- worn thin and fully prepared to _rest_ \- when he opens his door to see Stiles laid out on his couch, an empty bottle of bourbon hanging loosely from his fingertips, dangling over the edge of the cushion. He'd scented him throughout the complex, a lingering, meaty loam sort of aroma, suffusing the dusty-musk people-sweat cigarette-ash he was used to, and he'd guessed he'd find him here when the scent had only grown stronger near his door, he guesses, too, that this isn't the _first_ time Stiles has wound up here, judging by the mess and the way the smell of him has seeped into everything.

Peter doesn't bother waking him up, just closes and locks the door behind him, gets to cleaning, doesn't even turn on the light. There are dirtied clothes (some covered in what is obviously blood, others covered in something unidentifiable, and the rest seeming to have endured long, harrowing days), too many emptied glass bottles (he doesn't seem choosey, but whiskey is, by far, the most favored), the clutter that comes with living and the ignored spillage that comes with being too drunk to care what you've just knocked over. But, beyond that, even after the walls and floor are sparkling, the trash has been taken out, and the laundry machine is on its' second cycle, his apartment is still _different_ : simple, but aesthetically pleasing bookshelves have been put up, filled with things Peter had left in boxes or just set aside in some corner or other and long since forgotten, all mixed together with books and trinkets that he's never seen before; there's a practical herb garden hanging from the ceiling of his kitchen, silver wolf-shaped salt and pepper shakers, and his teapot, along with antique dishes he'd collected over the years, have all been unpacked and put away along with new, sensible dishware; there are pictures- abstract paintings that he actually _likes_ \- hung up on the wall, an xbox in the entertainment center under his tv, and he wouldn't have been _able_ to mop without the addition _of_ the mop.

Everything he'd once sequestered to boxes- rare books and items he'd gained from his travels and his work- is all unpacked and decorating this place in an artful way that gives it the ambiance of a wolf den, a witches hovel, a place that speaks to the people who live in it, that holds their lives within its' arms with _care_.

It isn't just storage anymore, and it can't be called something so banal as an apartment. It's a second home, all on its' own, and there's something viscerally _satisfying_ about that.

(He isn't even bothered by the fact that, technically, his territory has been repeatedly invaded, isn't made uncomfortable by the pieces of this home that are intrinsically _Stiles_.)

He guesses the reason why the other man's visiting probably has to do with their unfinished bargain, and wonders a little, too, at what he's been doing when he _wasn't_ here, but, for now, the sun has risen high in the sky, and Peter's exhausted; there's actually a _bed_ in the bedroom, and he plans to take advantage of it.

(When he wakes, the door to the patio is open, and Stiles is gone.)

* * *

He starts going to his apartment more often, without any real reason, or, at least, no real reason he's willing to admit to himself. Sometimes Stiles is there, sometimes he isn't, he's asleep more often than he's not, and in the moments he _is_ awake, they... don't talk about it.

About how large hunter clans are being slowly, viciously, systematically decimated, eaten from the inside out by seemingly random death, chaos, and a sudden, new-found police awareness; how Beacon Hills is surrounded by runes of fierce protection that Deaton's power couldn't even _touch_ , let alone _create_ ; how the nastier supernatural goings-on within their region are all of a sudden taken care of; how their bargain still hasn't been fulfilled to its' entirety—instead, they snark and they snipe and Stiles tries to get Peter drunk while Peter tries to get Stiles sober, and any time anything remotely important is brought up, Stiles flees.

It's an odd, tentative sort of friendship that makes ludicrously little sense, no matter _how_ you look at it.

"You need to consume something other than your body's weight in alcohol," Peter says firmly, one day, setting a plate of food in front of him.

"Why do you _care?"_ Stiles whines, more than a little petulant, clutching his head as he stares down at the plate with bleary, red-rimmed eyes. He's hung over, and probably a little miffed that Peter hid all the whiskey, beer, and wine.

"I'm friends with your liver-" Stiles drops his arms on the table with a thud to shoot him a look of utterly indignant incredulity, which Peter can't be blamed for not taking seriously considering the fluff of crazy electric-shock tangles sitting atop the other man's head, making him look far more vulnerable than he has any right to, and entirely ridiculous to boot- "we text; she's very aggrieved with your behavior. Now, eat."

Stiles' face scrunches up, "Why is my liver a she?"

"Because you're still _alive."_

"What has _that_ got to do with it? What if it's an it, or a _they?"_

Peter's eye twitches. _"Stiles,"_ he grits out, and the other man rolls his eyes.

 _"Fine,"_ he snaps, grabbing his fork, "God save me from mother-henning werewolves, Jesus."

"Gods save _me_ from alcoholic time-travelers," Peter mutters, sitting down across from him with his own plate. Stiles is the kind of skinny that _worries_ , all dwindling muscle and hollow concaves, and, Peter's noticed, taking care of himself never seems to be any priority—the most he does is make sure he ends up _here_ when he needs rest.

It shouldn't make Peter feel responsible, shouldn't make him want to force-feed the idiot until his cheeks are full and the fragility of his bones are hidden under supple, healthy, _meat_ , shouldn't make him want to drag the man to an AA meeting, shouldn't make him feel this oddly nurturing need bloom in his gut.

Except he _knows_ this man, now, to his _bones_ he knows him, though parts of his life still remain a mystery. He knows his rage and his vendetta and his lost family, all salted, aching, soul-shredding wounds, by nightmares and the research spread out on the coffee table, the murder-boards on display in front of it, both. He knows Stiles' wit, his humor and the way his mind is like clicking gears, or a really distracted squirrel—it depends on the day, depends on how much adderall he's taken. He knows Stiles' commitment, his ability to hyper-focus on something to his own detriment. He knows how he can insinuate himself into your life, your world, and make it seem completely normal, make himself a permanent fixture, and, in the end, you can't even blame him for it because he's the type of person who's so very _easy_ to forgive.

Peter wonders if it's that contrast of innocence and mischief, childishness and intense trauma, that makes him feel this way. He wonders if that's what makes it so easy for Stiles to grift his way into the hunters' midsts without ever once casting suspicion upon himself.

He sighs a little when he realizes that Stiles is eating excruciatingly slowly, sulking with a bit of an aggressive edge, and gets up- since his own plate is finished- to find a brush, and get rid of that truly horrendous bed-head.

* * *

Stiles mildly appreciates the fact that Peter left the patio door open, since he's not really in any shape to pick a lock just now- especially after pushing himself to essentially parkour-climb up about five flights- and sleeping out on the patio would've sucked.

When he clambers in he's surprised to see a very befuddled looking Peter staring at his dining table, or, more accurately, the items _on _his dining table: a collar, a food bowl, a litter-box, a scooper, cat-litter, and a hefty bag of expensive cat-food.__

Stiles blinks at the affair, turns his gaze back up to Peter, "Um. Did we get a cat?"

 _"No._ My family asked me why I smelled different, why I wasn't home as often, and then... came to conclusions of their own," he huffs out a breath. "I wonder if I should be offended that they think I'm too incompetent to care for a cat on my own."

Stiles paces closer, tiredly, gracelessly thuds into a chair, reaching into the pile to pick up a little feather-mouse toy and fiddle with it. "Why _do_ you smell different?"

Peter gives him a _look_ , and Stiles snorts.

"You could've just told them the truth."

"Yes, yes, I'm sure that conversation would've been _delightful_. Hey, Tal, do you remember the nightmares I've been having for a year? Well, the _reason_ for them likes to crash on my couch from time to time, but don't worry you're pretty little head, he's _harmless."_

Stiles winces a little, "Okay. That's fair." He trades the mouse toy for what appears to be a ball of catnip, sniffs at it curiously, it smells like grass and is otherwise boring, so he starts looking through the stuff for something else to play with. "What _did_ you tell them, then?"

"That I've acquired a troublesome stray," Peter answers primly. Stiles presses his lips together against a smile, blinks up at the 'were innocently.

"You think I'm troublesome?" He asks in his best hurt tone, fluttering his eyelashes and making his wide doe-eyes go _wider_. (The Pack had a puppy-dog contest one year, to see who had the best puppy-dog eyes, and, if it hadn't been for Scott he would've won, he _practiced_.)

But Peter's too busy glaring at the hand shaped bruises wrapped around his throat to fall for his act; he reaches out, slow, predicting every movement, to touch Stiles' hand on the table, shadow-black veins spidering up his arm at the moment of contact. Stiles makes a quiet sound, all of his sore, broken ache unfurling within him and seeping away.

"Yes," Peter agrees, eyes glittering like shattered sunlight against immaculate, deadly mountains of pure ice. Stiles swallows. "Possibly the most troublesome person I've ever encountered," he rounds the table to come closer, hand never leaving his, its' pair grazing his neck, gentle, questioning. "What happened, Stiles?"

Almost against his will (because it feels _good_ to have someone touching him like this, without the intention to hurt, with this intricate sort of compassion that makes him think _Pack_ , makes his breath hitch and his eyes burn and his heart clench. If he were more selfless, he might've run from this, instead of returning to it, helplessly, again, and again, and again) he leans into the touch, eyes fluttering closed. He hums a little when Peter caresses the bruised skin, other hand lacing their fingers together, easy as anything.

"I had enough time that I could afford to get rid of some of the other clans before I went after the Argents—the ones responsible for... the ones who _would've_ been responsible for what happened to— in my timeline." He takes a deep breath, Peter rubs the pad of his thumb along Stiles' pulse-point and waits. "But we're getting down to weeks, now, before, well, _everything_ , so, I." He opens his eyes, turns away from Peter slightly, enough that his hand slips away from Stiles' neck, though his other hand stays determinedly locked with Stiles', siphoning pain away with a hounded sort of dedication. "I went after them, Kate and Gerard, and it would've been _fine_..." He trails off, frowning fiercely, wanting nothing more than to raid the cupboards for any ounce of alcohol he can find.

"... But?" Peter prompts after awhile, squeezing Stiles' hand.

"But I fucking _froze_ , because I, apparently, still have stupid, shitty, fucked up, lingering-" he waves his free hand around wildly- " _trauma_ —what _ever_ , from being tortured in motherfucking basement when I was sixteen."

Peter sucks in a very sharp breath, and Stiles dares to look at him, then, at the protective fury dancing in his eyes, the bite of it sharper than any winter, and the tight, strained lines of his face. He looks formidable like this, but not the way he used to, not like he's a mine hidden in a minefield who could explode at any second, at any misstep—this is controlled, a blade within him, penetrating, excruciating, _honed_ , and one he wields _knowingly_ , something he utilizes when he _needs_ to, his _wants_ never factoring in. One he'd wield in anger, yes, but the kind of anger that is a mirror of Stiles' own, that bubbles up when someone you care about is in danger, in pain, and it is impossible for you to do _nothing_ in the face of that.

So you fight, or you die, in their name.

"I think," Peter says carefully, "that you left that part out, in your storytelling."

Stiles swallows, hard, throat uncomfortably tight, rough. "Yeah."

Peter grits his teeth. "Are they dead?"

Stiles nods, halfway to earnest before he remembers _who_ he's talking to.

 _"Good."_ It's so furiously vehement, with this oddly purring undertone, that Stiles almost flinches at it, his breath caught somewhere between his lungs and his frenetically beating heart. Peter, almost absently, runs a hand through Stiles' hair, soothing, eyes staring off into the middle-distance as he hums a little, thoughtful. Stiles unconsciously relaxes under his machinations, eases into fingernails scratching lightly through his scalp, playing with his hair.

Neither of them moves or speaks beyond that for several long moments, but, eventually, Stiles figures, he'll have to get this all out; he can't avoid it forever. And, so, he tells the rest of his story, the Nogitsune- they get a little sidetracked, here, when Peter realizes _that's_ what the whole fly thing was about, and, also, that Stiles had survived being _posessed_ , on top of everything else- Allison, the benefactor, the Dread Doctors and the _wild hunt_ ; the first time he'd killed someone of his own free will.

College, a lull of _happiness_ , Stiles marrying Lydia, their decision to have children right out of highschool- it wasn't a choice they made lightly, she was going to MIT, he was staying in Beacon Hills, had already begun running a lucrative business with Danny that had one foot in the supernatural and one foot in the mundane, didn't want to go to college like most of his friends, didn't necessarily _need_ to, but there _was_ a need there, that matched a much quieter need in Lydia, which had them ending up 'in the family way' at nineteen, and Stiles becoming something of a stay at home dad- Scott and Kira, Derek and therapy and Braeden, Liam breaking up with Hayden, but both of them still managing at friends, Jackson coming back to Beacon Hills with the remaining twin at his side.

Cora being in brazil more often than not, but skyping when she could.

Deaton becoming Stiles' teacher, and Morrell lingering at the edges of their Pack along with Chris and Isaac, who were halfway across the world on a bi-weekly basis.

How two clans of hunters came together with a commercial conglomerate that was in-the-know, created an army, and hit them all when they least expected it. Claudia was the first to go by their hand, and Derek the last, Lydia taking her own life with their second child still in her belly, and Stiles... well, he'd understood _his_ Peter better than anybody, then. He doesn't know if he went insane, or had a nervous breakdown, or just caught a temporary _something_ , but he _razed_ them.

He slaughtered every goddamn one of them, men, women (never children, though, never once would he allow himself to harm a child), everything in between.

He killed, and killed, and killed until there were rivers of blood flowing from his fingertips, until there were _thousands_ of bodies in his wake, until his thirst for it was slaked, and _then_ ——then he went home. He put his family, his _Pack_ to rest, he took control of the supernatural ward of Eichen and he _held_ the Hale territory, for whatever it may have been worth.

When Lydia died he figured out how to Bond himself to the Nemeton, an ancient thing, swathed in as much blood as he, by then. And they had helped him, had reveled the power he gave them, by offering every single death as sacrifice. Together, they danced, and they were _powerful_.

He's glad, in a deep, all-consuming sort of way, that, though they may have witnessed death and destruction and horror, the Nemeton has yet to become something that wishes for it, _thirsts_ for it, that, even though they're, maybe, just a little traumatized, they're still _kind_.

Peter seems a little reluctant to leave that topic, but it's less like he's trying to avoid divulging his nightmare and more like he's intensely curious about something he's never heard of before, so Stiles indulges him, lightly, and they talk in that vein for nearly an hour before getting around to Peter's last nightmare and his odd half-drugged state during the full moon on which he brought Stiles here. It isn't as heartbreaking as he'd expected, considering the previous nightmares he'd had to share, and it allows Stiles to be more firm in the knowledge of what spell they used and the fact that the Nogitsune is well and truly gone.

Their bargain finally completed- hey, it only took them about three months- and their throats dry and cracking by the end, Peter, thankfully, decides to bring out the whiskey.

Three glasses full of amber sweet-smoke liquid later, Peter murmurs, "Now that the transaction is finished, I wonder if this will be the last time I see you."

Stiles thinks about that for a moment, because that _had_ been the plan: make sure he had all the information, whatever insights he could take from the ghost of his wife, even with the perspective of another man shadowing it, and then _go_. He had shit to do, there were still hunters to deal with, and the supernatural ward of Eichen wasn't anywhere _near_ sorted, and, despite the changes already made to the timeline, despite- by all technicality- having Peter on his _side_ , there's still the chance that Ennis might go after Paige, and then there's _this_ timeline's version of his old Pack to deal with.

But...

"Nah," he decides, refusing to overthink it too much, "if I leave, your family will think your cat died on you." He snatches one of the feather wands from the grocery bag full of cat toys and angles himself from where his arms are pillowing his head on the table to whack Peter on the nose with it, which earns him an impressive glare. "It would suck to let all their gifts go to waste by proving them right, after all, wouldn't it?"

Peter raises an imperious eyebrow, Stiles tries not to devolve into giggles as he continues pressing the colorful feathers up against Peter's nose.

Peter snatches the thing, annoyed, and then turns it back around on Stiles, who's incredibly ticklish, and it all goes downhill from there.

(The tickle-fight lasts until they're too sleepy and intoxicated to rightfully move, and they fall asleep tangled up in each other on the rug in the middle of the living room. Stiles still makes himself scarce before Peter wakes up, but he comes back to the apartment that is quickly becoming _home_ far quicker than usual.)

* * *

·☥· **Act Four** ·☥·

If You're Weak, Come To Me and Find Shameful Company

* * *

[ **A/N ::** _[Shameful Company by RKS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUoO_ETPSSM)_  
_[The Cover that inspired this whole thing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kH9bIGYUUI)_ ]

 

Stiles is... poetic, in a sense.

He is a chasm of _power_ , intense and terrifying and _awesome_ in the most archaic way, he is the heartbeat of the forest and the shifting of tectonic plates and the white-water rapids of telluric currents. He's mischief, like a quick-tooth fox grin and words that contain as much mercury as they do cheer, and he's _devastating_ , silently, like hold your breath and fucking _struggle_ , he's the depth of the sea, overwhelmingly substantial, all compression and brine and gulping down too much salt-water as you dance with death just trying to _resurface_.

He's _absolutely_ sad, in the way ancient myths are, in the way that things untouched by time and convention and still walking- barefoot, feet bleeding, starving, unbending, weeping- are, he is like the epitome of heartbreak sometimes, all that is to say that he's _wretched_ , but never something to be pitied, or underestimated.

(Peter thinks, privately, that this is why Stiles can be Bonded so closely with the Nemeton. A stump with roots planted firmly, with magic, unsurrendering to Death—but still a _stump_. An ancient and wild thing. A tree, fallen.)

He's also joyful, in the way _children_ are- and, no, the upsetting irony isn't lost on him- like watching a fish with colorful scales and being filled with this whole, delicate sort of wonder, like seeing beauty in places no one else would ever _look_ , like still being capable of all that when you've got history like his, _trauma_ like his. Resilient.

Constantly terrified.

 _Brave_.

So, so, _incredibily_ clever.

He's an unsolvable puzzle, a mercurial sort of riddle, and he's _beautiful_ , like natural disasters can be beautiful, like tsunamis and earthquakes and _storms_. It's a thrill and an honor to be around him, just as much as it feels laden with responsibility, because this man, this _fiercely intense_ man is also _fragile_.

Not in any outright way, not in the way small animals are, where you look at them and all you can think is _breakable_ ; it's all underneath, it's in the way he drinks obsessively, goes into frenetic panic over the smallest things. The way it's a struggle to get him to sleep or to eat or to _recognize_ that- after four broken ribs, a fractured arm, a concussion, and _who knows what else_ \- maybe it's time to stop _pushing_ so goddamn hard and _rest_. It's in the way milk-cream skin is dotted with as many scars as it is freckles, in the way his soul probably looks even more battered than that, in the way he's more bone than meat and more suicide-reckless than actual _fight_.

Peter's beginning to understand his mother, a little, she who'd married a man who went to war when she was only seventeen, who kept herself busy with the babies he'd had before he met her and the ones he'd eventually conceived _with_ her, who loved someone who was always distant, even when he was _home_ , but he always _did_ come home- even though it felt like it was the hardest thing for him to do, even though he sometimes seemed more bird than wolf, the need to _fly_ a constant pressure beneath his ribs, the need to be back with his brothers, the need to spill blood, the need to protect, too much drive, too flighty and angry and _clumsy_ with emotions (he sees his father in Derek, he sees it in his quiet and his dry, _dry_ humor, and he sees his mother in the boy's debilitatingly singular romanticism)- he came home to her, to _them_. He'd come back in the form of a wolf, blood still coating his fur, the moon still pregnant in the sky, eyes flashing beet-deep red, sugary-juice contrasting starkly the Alpha they belonged to. And his mother, tender, sleep-soft but ardent, determined, would curl over him and pet coarse fur until it shifted back into skin, then she would take him, put him in the bath, and wash him, _singing_ , merry and bright and affirming, the cheer in it laced with ripples of fond sadness and sympathy, but no less bright for it.

It would take hours, but by the time the water he bathed in went from muddy to clear, the wolf would sing with her, harmonious solidarity, and, in that moment more than any other, he was _himself_ —which wasn't, in all honesty, a thing he was often.

He understands frayed worry, fraught protectiveness, and _waiting_ \- he hates Stiles for that, for never saying _where_ he's going, who he's hunting _this_ time, he hates that he isn't _there_ , a part of it, fighting _with him_ , but he understands why Stiles would never _let_ him (they're becoming Pack, he knows, can feel it in the beat of his heart, and if Stiles ever lost that again... Peter isn't sure he'd survive it)- he understands the need, the want, to slough off all the grit, to tame those jagged edges, re-sew the shredded seems, reassemble the broken pieces and find the _man_ in them again, to reassure yourself he's still there at all.

The most terrifying, petrifying thing- and he won't ever admit this to _anyone_ , least of all himself, _never_ \- is when Stiles, who is energy personified, loud and vivacious and annoying with it, goes quiet and unnaturally still, eyes staring off at nothing, nowhere, the scent of _anguish_ rolling off of him in waves, even while his face remains blank, stoic, his hand remains curled tightly around a bottle.

Like his soul's just drifted away, somewhere beyond reach.

(Peter feels like he's cracking open when he witnesses it, feels all heartache and unbearable _pain_ and _fear_ —he tries to tell himself that he's just _irritated_ that he can't _do_ anything about it.

And he's a good liar, he's proud of that, but he isn't good enough to buy the bullshit he's trying to sell.)

His mother is long dead, but he feels the ghost of her- and other ghosts, too, one with volcanic hair, another with an uneven jaw, and one that might be himself, in the most base ways- when he slides the half-empty bottle out of Stiles' hand, and pulls the other man up, into his arms, carries him to the bathroom.

Perhaps it is because he spent so long with Pack, or simply because he does _trust_ Peter- even though he tries not to, even though it's a struggle, even though it probably leaves a sour taste in his mouth on the days when he thinks about it too hard, looks at it too closely- but nudity isn't something that has ever bothered Stiles- if it's too hot, or his clothes are too grimy, or he's simply too cut up for it, he'll strip, uncaring and unabashed- so Peter has no reservations shedding him of his clothes, sitting him on the toilet, starting up the water.

It's... more intimate than he expects, and vaguely satisfying, somewhere deep and animal within him. There's a kind of lull in the susurrus of the water, the repetitive, soothing motions, all soap-silk glide, that makes conjuring a melody _easy_. A soft, rumbling, rambling hum mingled with words here and there, when the idea of some lyric or other catches his fancy, absently flutters past his lips, fleeting, whisper-quiet.

Stiles doesn't join him, but with every slow, languid blink, he seems to return more and more to himself. His breath hitches, at one point, and his tears blend with the bath water as a sudsy hand clings to one of Peter's arms, but he never pushes him away, never asks him to stop, just cries as Peter washes him, periodically rinsing salted cheeks with the rough washcloth, trying to be gentle.

Peter doesn't stop humming, and when he starts threading his fingers through hair that's gotten a little longer, now, since they first met, working shampoo into it, Stiles manages a soaked smile that, for everything he must've clawed through to find his way to it, is the most brightly dazzling thing Peter's ever seen.

For a moment, he's overwhelmed, he's _blinded_ , and by the time he's regained awareness- still light-headed, still with this fuzzy, airy feeling in his chest- he's already smiling helplessly back.

* * *

The description dispatch had given Noah was strange, and the scene he happened upon when he- along with several other deputies- answered it was even stranger.

A man, _heavily_ intoxicated, had been beating the living hell out of three other men- all of whom had records, _bad_ ones, and were the type of repeat offenders you kept your _eye_ on. By the time Noah gets to the scene, no less than five deputies are trying to hold him back, and this guy- kid, really, he looks _young_ \- is _screaming_ bloody murder, bulldozing his way back into the fray; all those deputies are practically ragdolls in the face of his wrath, he's two parts brute strength, three parts lean, agile, springy and nimble, and five parts ferocious tenacity, so Noah steps in. Gets himself between the guy and his would-be victims, places one firm hand on his chest and says:

"Son."

It's not all he was going to say, that appellation, because he wouldn't think that's all it would take to diffuse the situation, what with how the guy was all teeth snapping, snarling, _nothing can get in my goddamned way_ aggression barely a second ago. But the moment he's said that, he goes limp in the struggling arms of the other deputies, like all his strings have been cut, and he's looking at Noah with wide, _wide_ sand-swept eyes.

He realizes, belatedly, that those eyes are an echo of his wife's, his _son's_ , that his skin is the same kind of milk and his freckles, moles, are the same kind of honey, his hair the same kind of messy-curl chocolate. There's more than that, pieces of him are so familiar that it's _breathtaking_ , he looks so like Claudia, so like _Mischief_.

"Dad," the guy rasps brokenly, and Noah can see the grief there. He wonders, distantly, if they _are_ related in some way, but even as he catalogs all this information, he _stores_ it, puts it in a box and shoves it in the back of his mind to look at later; he's got a job to do.

Noah kneels down in front of the guy, the other deputies looking on half relieved, half dumbfounded. He doesn't bother correcting him on the mistaken familial recognition, it might make this easier, and besides, "How many have you had tonight, kid?"

"'M not a kid," the guy slurs petulantly, and then, quieter, starlight dazed eyes blurring with tears: "I'm not a kid." It's poignant, the conviction, the haunt shadowing him, the sounds of three convicts groaning in pain, five deputies holding themselves stiffly, trying to cover their own wounds, contrasted with how the guy looks, there, sitting on his heels in the middle of all this ado he created, staring at the bloodied hands curled in his lap, flushing with adrenaline and sudden shame, caught-out, hunched in on himself, and Noah feels like someone just wrapped a hand around his heart and _squeezed_.

"Okay," he agrees, soft, "okay, you're right, I'm sorry: you're not a kid." He pauses, clears his throat, repeats the question, "How many have you had tonight?"

The stranger's brow furrows, frowning, and he flexes his fingers, seems to almost be counting them for a moment- not like he's trying to do the math, exactly, more like he's trying to soothe himself, from one to ten over and over, a deep breath, a swallow. "Too much," is what he finally confesses, and then, astoundingly: "They killed her, daddy."

And there are tears streaming down this kid's face now, his breathing slowly devolving into hitched, water-logged hiccups. That hand around his heart? It's _crushing_ now, intense pressure suffused with dread. He glances sidelong at the convicts- all three of which have gone utterly still- but all he sees on their faces is shock and the dawning realization that maybe the fight this guy started had nothing to do with them at all. Yeah, he's starting to get that, too. He returns his attention to the kid- who's rocking back and forth now, murmuring drunkenly to himself, pretty much checked out- and sighs, some heavy, distressing thing filling his gut.

The three convicts are more sympathetic and forgiving than he'd thought, they don't want to press charges, they just want to get the _hell outta there_. The other deputies are happy enough to leave the kid to him, since Noah's got a knack with him, and as much as Noah wants to clock out, check on Mischief, visit his wife in the hospital, he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he just left this guy alone.

So, after he's put him- Michael Goodfellow, his ID says- in the drunk tank, Noah sneaks the kid's phone from his personal effects and calls the emergency contact.

* * *

The man who comes rushing into the sheriff's department, all wind-bitten cheeks and panic-disheveled, isn't what Noah was expecting: he's tall- not taller than Noah, but his presence is _strong_ in that looming way that makes it _seem_ like he is- and built for _mountains_ , or construction work, something that requires bulk and tenacity, bundled in a heavy trench coat, brown, crushed velvet and leather, over a tight-fit gray shirt, black slacks, and dress shoes, business casual in a way that confirms Noah's suspicion that he'd interrupted _something_ when he'd called.

And the man who'd dropped everything to run here, comes up to Noah's desk, half breathless, light brown hair tousled, eyes like storm-clouds and heavy rain, asking the same question he'd asked on the phone not ten minutes ago, "Is he alright?"

"I'm guessing you're, uh, zombiesparkle?"

The man blinks at him, then groans exasperatedly, rolling his eyes and running a hand through his hair. He's still vibrating with tension and worry, but it's a little lighter now. "What am I going to do with him?" He mutters under his breath, shaking his head. "Peter," he corrects, voice a little tight, reaching out to shake Noah's hand, and the deputy smiles at the gesture, the politeness, even though it's obvious this guy- _Peter_ \- just wants to get to Goodfellow, know what happened, check that he's okay with his own eyes—it's part of the reason Noah didn't answer his fretful question, because he knows no reassurance would really get through, anyway.

"Deputy Stilinski," he introduces himself, shaking the man's hand firmly, "but you can call me Noah."

Peter seems to freeze for a second at that, for no real reason Noah can discern, giving him a strange, indecipherable look when he snaps himself out of it, unclasping their hands and stepping back to give Noah some room to move, round his desk and talk face to face.

"What happened?" Peter asks, and his back is straight, then, his face blank and his demeanor stoic.

As Noah explains, leaving out the smaller details, and only offering what is, essentially, a clinical report, Peter's eyes seem to steadily darken. The look isn't directed at him, but that makes it no less chilling, it's the culling, unforgiving kind of blizzard that people long dead would beg their Gods to let pass them, to _please, have mercy_ , on their crops, their kingdoms, their babes, never knowing that their Gods wouldn't have been able to spare them, because _that_ \- what's living in Peter's eyes right now- isn't the type of thing that _listens_ to Gods, anyway.

"May I see him?"

"I can do you one better," Noah tells him, trying not to think about how the man in front of him looks every ounce the _killer_ right now; he doesn't think that rage is directed at Goodfellow, either, or even the three men Goodfellow was beating on, he thinks it's pointed at something bigger, something Peter can't fight physically, but hates with every ounce of his being. There's this impotent frustration to it, like if it _was_ a person it would already be dead at his feet, and with that, something clicks into place, and he has a sudden realization.

Because Claudia used to get that look, a smaller dose of it, any time Noah came home later than usual, came home injured, and _he_ wears it now, knows the wrinkles and crevices of it _intimately_ , feels them settle on his face whenever he thinks about the relentlessness of his wife's illness, his hopelessness in the face of it. And because, for all that Goodfellow looks young, he also looks like he's _been through **hell**_.

And maybe he has.

Maybe Peter has, too, by merit of proximity, by merit of _loving_ Goodfellow—and he has no doubt that Peter loves him, it's as clear as fucking day.

Which just makes this decision that much easier.

"I can let you take him home."

Peter seems surprised by that, but eager, not even bothering to ask questions, to look a gift horse in the mouth. And Noah offers him a half friendly, half sympathetic smile, as he walks him back to the holding cells.

Goodfellow's curled up on the cot, snuffling, and Peter goes to him without hesitation as soon as Noah's opened the door.

"—— -" he thinks he heard Goodfellow's name, but it didn't sound like... No. He did say Michael, didn't he? Noah frowns slightly, before ultimately deciding to let it go- "sweetheart?" Peter's voice is silk-sweet, authority mingled with seductive allure, threaded with a tremor of worry and something like terrified _devotion_. He crouches down in front of the cot, hand gentling on Goodfellow's shoulder. "Hey," he murmurs, softer, with more care, shaking the other man awake.

Goodfellow's eyes flutter open at the insistence, wander around the room dazedly until they land on Peter, and then they get this sheer, naked, cracked-open, forlorn vulnerability as he reaches out to clutch at the lapels of his trench coat, "There was a little girl," he whispers confessionally, urgent, choked and clogged with impending tears. "I couldn't get there in time, I—I—" he gasps raggedly, and Peter makes this little sound, half brutal, inhuman, chainsaw, half wounded, keening whine, as he drags Goodfellow into his chest and buries his nose in long, curling, russet hair.

Goodfellow's eyes go wide, like he's faintly surprised that what he's feeling is affecting Peter, too, and then his arms wind around Peter's back, hands clutching fiercely. "She's dead," he chokes, horrified, "they killed her. They _killed_ her." He scrunches his eyes shut tight, buries his face in Peter's shoulder, and tries to keep his gut-wrenching sobs silent.

"Hush, darling, hush," Peter mumbles, quiet, rocking them a little in the embrace, his voice sounds nearly as wrecked as Goodfellow's does. "I'm sorry, sweetheart, I'm sorry. Come on, it's over now, it's _over_. Let's go home, baby."

Goodfellow nods, even as he clings, shows no intention of moving at all; Peter goes with it, though, wraps an arm under his knees and lifts him as easy as anything.

Noah isn't even ashamed by the tears running rivers down his cheeks, just nods Peter's way as the couple moves to leave and prays they'll be alright.

(His curiosity niggles at him, a burning itch, but it isn't right to ask questions after a moment like that. He waits until they're gone to try his hand at looking into it, and, upon finding next to nothing on the men themselves- Peter Hale, in college, clean, Michael Goodfellow, high school dropout, probably an alcoholic (this isn't his first drunk and disorderly, nor is it his first 'honorable assault'), but no priors- he searches the local news and...

Last night: a seven-year-old girl and her family murdered, _gruesomely_.

This morning: the suspects- and the proof to pin them to that crime along with others, _so many_ others, posthumously- were found tortured to an obscene extent, the Haven County Sheriff thinks it's linked to several acts of vigilanteism that have been happening in the area.

Noah decides to let it go. Sometimes it's just better to let sleeping dogs lie.)

* * *

"Holy shit, _dude,"_ Stiles breathes, poring over something on his computer—probably something related to the timeline, how close and far they are from certain things, he's been whining about not knowing with _complete_ accuracy a lot, recently. "How old are you?"

Peter turns away from the oven- old-fashioned lasagna happens to be one of Stiles' favorites- to raise his eyebrows at the other man, who looks up at him, vaguely horrified. Peter fights not to smile. "Twenty-three," he answers, crossing his arms over his chest, narrowing his eyes when Stiles squawks and nearly flails out of his seat on the sofa, causing papers to fly. _"Why?"_

"Oh my _God,"_ is the only reply he gets, as Stiles rapidly manages to tumble out of the sofa at the same time he tries to regather his papers back onto the mess he's made of the coffee table—the only person who'd ever be able to know where anything is in that dysfunctional horde of expertly coded information is the man who compiled it. Stiles keeps up with his litany of 'oh my god's, mingled with a few curses, as he crawls around, making piles of notes and books all tumble to the floor even as he tries to right it all again. Peter walks over with a huff, stops all of Stiles' frenetic chaos, and makes the other man sit back to wallow in his shock as _he_ cleans the mess, waits him out.

Stiles' brain-to-mouth filter is atrocious, which is a good tactic- Peter would marvel at his ability to deflect if it weren't used on _him_ so often- but, more often than not, at least in the presence of someone he _likes_ \- even if there isn't any trust there, because Stiles is the kind of loyal that's completely unconditional, not contingent on the other person at all; if you're in his good graces, _you're in his good graces_ , he will die for you, kill for you, live for you, accept any and all consequences that lie therein- the words bubble out of him like gushing water, and all of his secrets spill out unerringly and heedlessly with them.

Not the _important_ ones- like who he's protecting, killing, where he's going, if he's going to come back beaten more than just bloody, this time- but... Peter chances a glance at the man, feels amusement trickle down his throat, cool and comforting.

This doesn't seem like an important one.

"Dude," Stiles bemoans, and tilts over to flop on his side, groaning melodramatically in the back of his throat like it's the end of the _world_ —not _literally_ , if it were _literally_ the end of the world Peter has no doubt that Stiles would just take one look at whatever's going on and, no matter what pants-wetting terror he might feel for it, push his sleeves up and _figure it the fuck out_. Peter coughs to stifle the laughter he can feel clamoring in his lungs at the sight of Stiles writhing and rolling around on the floor, utterly, dramatically distraught. "I'm _older_ than you!" Stiles finally shouts, sitting up looking disheveled and wild and, overall, _disturbed_.

Peter blinks at him.

"By, like, a _whole_ year! I'm a _grandfather!_ I'm _older_ than Peter Hale-" he seems to be addressing the sky, now- "what's become of my life! I probably have gray hairs... _Do_ I have gray hairs? Oh my God, Peter, we need to buy hair dye, and, like, facial creme, or something, and, and, a _cane!_ So I can yell at kids to get off our lawn!"

There's no point in refraining, Peter's doubled over, wheezing with unbridled laughter at this point, and he's barely able to get out, in between whole-body convulsive guffaws, "We don't _have_ a lawn."

Stiles yelps, indignant, throwing his arms up in the air. "That's not the point!"

* * *

Talia's happy to have her brother home tonight; it's been _odd_ to be so bereft of him the past few months or so, since he's acquired that cat of his and been spending more and more time at his apartment.

She hadn't honestly realized how much a part of their lives he was until they were _missing_ him, and she _knows_ she isn't the only one—last night she'd found Laura and Derek curled up in his study, sleeping there just to be near the smell of him. The whole Pack felt a tinge of loss without him there, everyone had had at least one moment, or twelve, where they'd look over to see him react, or pause with an expectation for a long monologue about art or wine or history or literature, a second where they could almost _taste_ the jibe, playful and acidic all at once. But then they'd realize he wasn't _there_ , and they'd frown, move on just the slightest bit hesitant, languorous.

He still did as he was meant to, didn't slack off at all in his duty- not like there was much to do, nowadays: some vigilante with a grudge had been methodically working through Code-defiant hunters and had managed to take down Gerard and Kate Argent directly before the meeting Deucalion had set, forcing the Argents- who could _not_ seek their own retribution, considering everything that had come to light shortly after the deaths of their kin (five families burnt alive, and more besides, _contemptable_ would've been an _understatement_ )- to send _Chris_ , who ended up not only being amenable, but very nearly _kind_ ; Derek- due, in part, to Peter's interference, though it may've only been through text- managed to not only waylay himself from, but confess _to_ the absolutely _foolish_ plans he'd had for Paige, which led to Paige getting The Talk, and the couple breaking up—not because he didn't tell her, or because of what they _were_ (which she'd, for all intents and puroses, figured out on her own), but because he didn't _trust her_ to _make choices for **herself**_.

Two pretty big crises averted with minimal need for any input from the Left Hand, and Deaton's discovery of some passing Caster blessing them with _extemely_ powerful protective runes leaving their land blissfully untouched by the usual ebb and flow of bi-weekly monsters meant that Peter didn't really have anything to worry about on that end, either.

Which left him entirely free to focus on... his _cat_.

Talia still wasn't sure about that endeavor—cats, as far as she knew, could not _stand_ Peter, and the hatred- up until now, at least- always used to be returned in kind. That's not even mentioning the fact that Peter doesn't really have a nurturing bone in his body- beyond the few times he's managed softness for some of her children, he's always been... _sharp_ , the bite of winter in his eyes, the slice of well-honed silver on his tongue, a sliver of unrepentant fury at the very core of his soul- and leaving the care of a small animal to him just makes her... _worry_.

But after spending barely ten minutes with him, she can already see he's _changed_.

Oh, he's still got all his toothsome puckish _unbearably irritating_ , he spends no small amount of time fascinated with Derek's break-up with Paige- which he, technically, facilitated in- reveling in the embarrassment and the shame and the impetuous grief, but there's this undercurrent of tender, and he soothes every hurt he may've caused almost helplessly, until it's less like he's pouring salt into the wound and more like he's digging out an infection. His banter with Laura is less a snapping, snarling, hairsbreadth from an argument type thing, the teasing smooth, palatable, and vaguely wise when the spirit takes him; he accepts Phillip's quiet with an ease that's almost _kind_ , and he and Cora are a house on fire instead of their usual glaring contest.

He's different with her, too, with _everyone_ , like he's settled in his own skin, still bright and terrifying, she knows, but it's all muted edges here, _cozy_ , and the dichotomy is _vast_ , really.

She can't tell if he's just grown as a person or if she should be worried he's been traded for a changeling of some kind.

They get consumed by the tide of conversation at dinner, the rise and fall of it, but everyone seems to be hyper-aware of Peter- for having missed him, for seeing him in a new light- and, so, when he gets a call in the middle, and actually leaves the table, the room, to take it, it doesn't occur to any of them not to eavesdrop.

It isn't unusual, him answering calls in the middle of dinner, he's got his work, and his role as the Left Hand of a large, respected, influential Pack, and he's never really been the type of person to be bothered by convention- what's rude versus what's polite- unless the situation absolutely demands it. But _normally_ , he'd just take it right there at the goddamned table, fuck everyone and everything, and continue to eat, converse with the Pack, whilst he did whatever he needed to do on the phone.

He once coached a newly-minted supernatural doula through helping a troll give birth, whilst trading barbs with Laura and insulting Phillip and snapping at Derek, told a Wendigo how to preserve his meats, a witch how to dissect within the proper guidelines of a certain spell, a human what _not_ to touch in an antique shop owned by a Darach. It just makes you wonder what kind of call he'd think requires at least the _illusion_ of privacy.

"Hello!" The person on the other end of the line, crackling, tinny, distant, chirps. " _Blue_ eyes. Baby blues," he laughs "They write country songs about you, y'know. Or, not you. Your _eyes_. Pretty, pretty, cotton candy skies in those blue eyes."

There is a heavy dose of amusement in Peter's voice when he says, "Stiles."

It's also, maybe, the fondest, most simply happy, _bright_ she's ever heard him. In their entire _lives_.

A small hum. "Where are you? Came home and you weren't here, and I got—or I didn't. It's hard. Couldn't find the light switch, or the couch, but 'm okay. Okie-dokie. Mmm."

This Stiles character is slurring a little, and Laura hisses, delighted by the prospect, "Did Uncle Peter just get _drunk dialed?"_ At the same time Phillip catches on the same word she did, "Home?"

"I'm with— family." Then his voice twists, and it's... there's a _depth_ to it, concern mingled with affection, restless, gentle, more she couldn't possibly parse but it's _big_ , whatever it is, when he asks, "Do you need me?"

She has a feeling, if the answer is yes, that Peter will be gone before any of them can even protest.

"Noooooooo," comes the response, slurred and drawn out. "'M _okay_ , I said: okay, okay, okay."

There's a slight hesitation, then, careful, and so _incredibly_ warm, "Are you sure?"

"How are you such a mother-hen?" Stiles asks fervently, exasperated, but with all his heart spilling out underneath, like he couldn't possibly be upset about it if he tried. "Really? I wouldn't've even have believed it if I hadn't seen you... it? Seen you doin' it. _Still_ can't believe it."

"It's your fault; you don't _take **care** of yourself,"_ Peter's words are hushed, a thread of something manic in them.

"... I let you take care of me," Stiles whispers, like an apology, and everyone at the table is starting to pick at their food, because this suddenly feels so _intimate_. Personal, and they're trespassing where they shouldn't be.

"Sometimes," Peter concedes, and, Gods, but it sounds _resigned_.

"Sometimes," Stiles agrees, mild. A long, heavy moment passes, and she thinks Peter and Stiles are comfortable in it the way she and her family most definitely _aren't_. The sound of a yawn on the other line is what finally breaks it, and Peter rumbles a little, a sub-vocal soothing noise contained in his chest, all wolf (it kind of stuns her, because she knows what would compel _her_ wolf to make a noise like that, she knows instinct; and she isn't the only one shocked, if the looks on her Packs' faces are anything to go by). "Hey, Peter?"

"Yes, darling?"

"I know-" he cuts himself off, changes tracks. "Family's important, and you should get back to them, but could you... can you sing to me? Just a little? Until I fall asleep?"

The person on the other end of the line sounds so _young_ when he asks it, so young and so very fragile. _Compelling_ , to an almost terrifying extent. (She can't carry a tune in a bucket, and she _hates_ to sing, but if he were asking her she doubts she'd be able to deny him.)

So it doesn't surprise her when Peter acquiesces, even though she's quite sure she's never actually _heard_ him sing—maybe once or twice, when they were younger, but never serious, or for an audience, just to get a song out of his head. What _does_ surprise her, at first, is how _good_ he is, like burning honeycomb over twilight fresh-water, deep-timbre, reflective, smoky, _enchanting_.

And then the song he's singing actually _registers_ , and takes her back so suddenly and vividly—to long nights spent curled up with Peter outside of the bathroom whenever their dad came home, until she decided she was too old to rightly care, even though Peter never stopped, even when he reached the age she thought he maybe _should've_. The feel of the wood floor underneath her and Peter folded small in her lap, the wall pressing against her back and her eyes caught on the little window in the tiles above the tub, stars through foggy glass. The way the tiny lightbulb in the bathroom flicker-buzzed, closer than the crickets chirping outside, but quieter. Cotton under her hands as she rubbed Peter's back; he was so _tiny_ , then, still practically a baby, delicate, a little bit of a wonder, this little alien who had the potential to be a person but wasn't quite there yet. And they'd listen, silent and mindful and amicable in the way they _never were_ in the daylight as their Mama sang, sweet, lilting melody, wistful, a little sorrowful, and somehow overflowing with joy, the kind of love you could only ever surrender to because it's just _so much_ , and it never stops.

Talia remembers the way her breath used to hitch, when her father would join in- and he sang like her, clumsy, harsh, flat and toneless, but if he was singing it meant that he was _there_ , home again, like their Mama'd washed the battlefield right off him- when her mother's song would get high and tight with restrained laughter, with the wide, open, _bright_ smile she was wearing, and that's how it hitches, now, when she realizes the song Peter's singing is one of _hers._

(She has her mother's songbook, she knows, somewhere in the attic, dusty, the pages rumpled from overuse, covered in the days they've lived, in the fingerprints of a woman she loved, a woman who died too goddamn _soon._

She put it up there the day after the funeral. She hasn't been able to touch it since.)

Teagan, the only other one at the table who might be able to understand, all the rest of her brothers and sisters with their own families or their own Packs- even though Talia doubts she gets it _completely_ , she never sat in the hallway with them, she never waited up for their father, when they knew he was coming home, she'd just wake up with him there and smile at the change- trades seats with her wife to press close into Talia's side, a line of comforting warmth, as she holds her hand. Talia's husband doing the same.

She isn't sad, necessarily, but she still feels a little like crying, like there's this fuzzy sort of pressure in her chest, a tightness of memory and weighted time in her throat. Some of the others- the ones not too caught up in the song to take notice- seem concerned, but she waves them off with a wobbly sort of smile and the assurance that it's—it's good. Whatever she's feeling is undefinable, but it's _good._

When the song is done, a captivated hush falls over them.

A susurrus sleep sound, deep breathing and a resting heartbeat.

Peter chuckles softly, whispers, _utterly_ enamored, "Goodnight, darling." And hangs up the phone.

Needless to say, none of them manage to have enough presence of mind to look _sheepish_ about the fact that they were eavesdropping, let alone _hide_ it.

Peter stands in the doorway for a moment, looking at all of them, before raising a very judgemental eyebrow. "Well, then," is all he says, wry drawl, before retaking his seat. The silence maintains, everyone looking at him, expectant. He takes up his knife, his fork, cuts off a piece of steak, puts it in his mouth, chews, all with the air of a man who has absolutely no fucks to give for their curiosity.

"So?" Laura finally breaks. "Was that your boyfriend? Who you're _cohabitating_ -" she overenunciates the word, all drama and mischievous glee- "with? Who none of us know about? And when are we going to meet him? Oh my god," she squeals, "I'm gonna tease the _hell_ out of him for this, when I _do_ meet him, because I _am_ going to meet him." She instantly becomes the bossy, dominating presence that dubbed her the next Alpha when she was barely out of diapers, leveling a _'you're not getting out of this'_ glare at her Uncle, with a pointed, _"Right?"_

Peter sits back in his chair, matching her glare with something dry and... guarded? He lets the question hang, draws it out until the antsier packmates get fidgety, for all that they're riveted, before saying, completely seriously:

"He's my cat."

"I—— What?"

Peter raises his eyebrows, repeats himself slowly, as if to let it sink in, "He's my cat."

Laura blinks at him.

Peter goes back to his food, and doesn't deign to answer any more of her questions, though his lips twitch up when Laura calls out an indignant battle-cry, promising to figure it out for herself.

And Talia... Talia's in a better mood than she's been in _months_ , can't shake her smile for _anything_.

She knows they'll meet Stiles eventually, knows it in the very depths of her soul, so, for now, she'll let her brother keep him to himself, and when the day comes he brings his man home, she's going to thank him with everything she's got.

* * *

·☥· **Act Five** ·☥·

A Class In Sobriety

* * *

Stiles has eradicated the hunter cells that were the most troublesome in his timeline, committed corporate sabotage, a few acts of arson, and more, so much more:

He's had a very Long Talk, that was frustrating and lasted for _four fucking days_ , with Deaton about the supernatural ward of Eichen, before decisively killing what needed to be killed- namely, the dread doctors (who are actually _under_ Eichen, but whatever. He gets rid of their notes, nazi-in-a-can immortality method, and their _'lab'_ , too), Valack, and a few others he knows would've gotten out eventually- having a much shorter, more concise (read: threatening) talk with Dr. Fenris, and outsourcing the management of the whole of the place- supernatural parts included- to Charlotte Neuvaux, who is both really curious as to how he knows her and completely up for the challenge of the job. He's some-magnificent-how managed to get Erica's parents into the benefits of tea and, from there, gotten them in touch with Mathilda (who assumes he knows her via word of mouth, and is more than willing to sell them tea spelled to help stabilize neurological electrical activity- even _if_ they're mundanes), and saving a Faerie from a Dragon and getting said faerie a job as a pharmacist had the added benefit of someone indebted to him being around Scotty's inhalers before they left the press- the younger version of his best friend will still probably have asthma well into his teens, but he'll also probably grow out of it, with it becoming less and less severe as he grows older.

Killing the guy who fully intended to kidnap Alicia Boyd was _easy_. Slipping her little brother a little charm that would cause the others he'd slipped that same charm- little him, Scott, Erica, Isaac, Lydia, Cordelia (Cora), Caterina (Cat, Cora's _twin_ ) and Danny (not Jackson, because Jackson's likely to follow anyway, and also needs to decide to do it _without_ any subtle psychic nudges, otherwise he might be a dick about it; not Allison, because Chris and Victoria go where the hunts take them, despite their treaty with the Hales—which kind of leaves the Hales as solitary agents, now that Kate and Gerard are dead, with no hunters in their den)- to converge on him was _laughably_ easy.

Meridith he kind of anonymously tossed Satomi's way, because he had a feeling she'd be good for her, _Pack_ would be good for her. Theo, he purified- because killing your sister and stealing her heart, _christ_ , the shit that did to your soul- before helpfully explaining most, but certainly not all, of the reality to the Raekens and shoving them all at Deucalion with a little note about sociopathic psychopaths and please, could you turn him into a monk or something? You're still all about the peace, right?

Ethan and Aiden were harder, mostly because he actually had to go out of his way to _find_ them; they were with some abusive, barely integrated Pack in Oregon. It took him about a week to integrate himself in said Pack, three days to find a Beta who had better morals and management skills, another week to convince them to help him kill the Alpha, and two more to bind the Pack more wholly to its' new Alpha, to get them from abused to at least on the path to healing, the Betas are Betas and pointing at anyone and calling them an Omega when they were still part of the Pack should be fucking _frowned upon_. He found them a relatively powerful Emissary, kind, and not so enigmatic as to be annoying as all hell, and with enough know-how to dampen the twins' gifts, and help train them to learn how to _control_ their abilities.

(It was actually one of the longest stints he'd spent away from Beacon Hills, and when he came back home, he'd barely taken a breath before Peter dragged him into a fierce, half desperate hug, clinging and scenting and telling him he smelled _terrible_ , before forcing him into a shower, clean clothes (Peter's), shoving food down his throat, and then dragging him to the bed to... cuddle. It had been crazy, and hilarious, and... and something else altogether. Something kinda profound, kinda scary, something he doesn't have the time to read into.)

Lydia's case is harder in the sense that it's a _'wait and see'_ type thing, and he's never been good at those. It's also an incredibly _emotionally fraught_ type thing, and... he's never been good at those either.

(He thinks he gets really, terribly drunk while he's trying to figure it out, ends up with Peter bathing him, singing to him again. It's becoming a kind of regular occurrence, this delicate act of give and take between them, fuzzy-soft and cathartic, _grounding_.

Part of him, in that moment, while Peter's washing his hair, big, gentle, hands- hands he knows could rip his throat out, could eviscerate, slaughter, _would_ without second-thought if it meant protecting, avenging, but he tilts his head up, bearing himself, trusting him with his life- lathering as the 'were sings over the sound of rippling water and fizzing soap-suds, wants to ask for help. But he doesn't want Peter to stop singing, so he stays quiet.)

As for his mom... The Bite wouldn't heal her, _his magic_ wouldn't heal her, so he just tries to avoid thinking about it. And Rafael is already gone, the asshole. Perhaps Stiles and Scott were always fated to have single parents. He can only hope a bigger friend group will help.

The only person he genuinely _doesn't know what to do with_ \- because murdering his dad doesn't seem viable without something to fall back on, after, and getting proof has been next to _impossible_ \- is Isaac.

Isaac who's only ten years old and covered in well-hidden bruises, who has demons and wisdom and something tacitly violent cowering behind his eyes. A little shy, a little murderous, a lot sarcastic, and a _child_. Just a fucking kid.

* * *

Peter comes home to Stiles sitting on the floor in the middle of the kitchen, face muddled, surrounded by bottles of whiskey and rum and bourbon and wine.

The dim light from the kitchen is the only light that's on, spilling over Stiles' hunched, weighted shoulders, and pooling around him on the linoleum, catching the glass corners of his collection like pieces of artificial starlight.

"Sweetheart?" He murmurs, tentative, going to the coffee table first to set his keys down, keeping his eyes on the other man.

"I... there's someone I want to help," Stiles begins to explain without further prompting, never looking away from the bottles around him, the liquid within them. "And in order to do that, I need to stop—" he gestures around in a catch-all sort of way, though his movements are a little limp, lethargic. "But, God, I can't. I _can't_ —I... I know what I am, I know what this is, I _know_ it's an addiction; I can only fool myself for so long, but. How am I gonna survive? Without the buffer? I'm selfish, I'm a fucking coward, and, damn _everything_ , I'm not strong enough. I'm _not."_

Peter leans his shoulder against the arch that leads into the kitchen, arms folded across his chest, lets everything Stiles just said sink in, and surmises: "You're running."

It feels like more of a revelation than it should, _surprising_ , even though he should've seen it from a mile away, but it settles here, in the air between them, cocooned like they are in the still-calm repose.

"Of _course_ I'm running," Stiles huffs, tearful, almost hurt, finally meeting his eyes, ancient deserts scraped treacherously up from the depths of a forlorn sea. "What else can I do, Peter? What else, but run?"

Peter scoffs before he can rein himself in, shaking his head at this ridiculous man in front of him. "I am... so _flabberghasted_ hearing that question from _you_ , of all people."

"Well, _fuck you,"_ Stiles snaps, furiously wiping away the tear that managed to escape his teetering control. "I'm _asking_ it."

"... You do what you _always_ do, darling," Peter tells him with a shrug, because it seems so _obvious_. "You _fight."_

Stiles laughs, ugly and tear-soaked, not even trying to disguise all his _broken_. "I am _so **tired**_ of fighting, Peter," he rasps, voice cracking with emotion, a hiccupping sob lingering in the back of his throat, and he looks so _old_ , like this. Lost and worn and _weary_.

"Then let me _help_ you," Peter grits out, fervent, agitated, _urgent_ , because this suddenly feels like the _end_ of something, or the _beginning_ of it, _immediate_. Both of them standing on the edge of a precipice, and he isn't about to let either one of them fucking fall. "Let me help you fight, let me help you _win."_

"I forgot about the egomania for a second there," Stiles whispers hoarsely, pointing a half-heartedly accusing finger, trying at light, an ill-fitting smirk flashing across his face, "thanks for reminding me."

 _"Stiles,"_ Peter growls, sharp, vexed, stalking forward, sweeping clinking bottles aside to crouch down in front of him. "Please," he murmurs, already gone back to soft, the desperation leaking through that one word is something he might be ashamed of, in any other circumstance, something he'd fight tooth and nail _not_ to show, but he's long since stopped trying to hide anything from Stiles. "If in nothing else, then in _this_ , at least, I want... Just. Would you let me fight with you?"

"God, Peter," Stiles chokes, tilting his head up to look at the ceiling, keep the tears at bay—baring his throat in the same motion, his adam's apple bobbing with a hard swallow, "you already _are_ , why are you even asking?"

"Because this is _different,"_ Peter tells him, lifting his hands to cup Stiles' cheeks, making the other man face him, _look_ at him. "Because it's important. And I need you to _answer_ me."

Stiles hesitates, eyelashes clumped together, a study in _agony_ , before he manages to smooth himself out, a huff, a sniffle, and then, resigned and fond and _giving in_ , "Okay. _Okay_ , yes, help me, fight with me," he huffs again, wry and something else entirely, "fucking whatever."

Peter grins, all teeth and bite and _wolf_. "First things first, then," he decides, sliding his hands down to Stiles' shoulders, the length of his arms- not so skinny, now, healthier, _fuller_ , strong- feeling the reality of him, weaving their hands together and pulling him up in one, fluid motion. "We get rid of these," he says, motioning to the forest of liquor around them, "and we find an AA meeting for you to go to."

Stiles raises an eyebrow, manages to look skeptical and judgemental even with rivers still running down his cheeks, even with his eyes still water-logged, and, _ah_ , Peter thinks, _**there** he is_. "An _AA meeting?"_

"Don't buy into the stigma, Stiles, you're smarter than that. And you, yourself, said this is an addiction."

Stiles takes a deep breath, like he's donning armor, and his face goes stony, grimly determined, that spark in his eyes, that thrilling thread of bravery. "Alright," he's still struggling, he _will_ be struggling, probably for the rest of his life, but the tension in his shoulders has eased a little, "let's do this."

* * *

Laura sniffs him out in the grocery store, that scent that's all crisp, spices and loam, that cleaves to her Uncle, hides under his mountains and dry, over-oxygenated air.

He's tall, fair-skinned and freckled, with dark brown curls hanging just past his shoulders, wearing dark clothes, cargo pants that cling and a baggy sweatshirt that consumes him, hides him, and the kind of shoes meant for running, almost as worn and muddy as the look in his eyes; he's standing in the liquor aisle, just _staring_ at what's on offer.

She knows it's him- _Stiles_ \- the guy on the phone, and she's a heartbeat away from rushing toward him, brash and asking all the questions she's _full_ of, the questions that time just keeps adding to, when Peter shows up. He doesn't see her, he's at the end of the aisle, and she's at the front of it, and she doesn't know if he'd notice her if she were standing right next to him doing _jumpingjacks_ , with how singular his focus it.

"Stiles," he says, like it's simple- but she can tell it isn't, she can tell she's got the shallow ripples on the surface where they've got the murky-mire depths- and the man turns away from the alcohol to dive into eyes that have always reminded her of glaciers, slow, calculating, and thunderstorms, precise, violent, but they look like summer rain, here, all melancholy warmth. He reaches out a hand, not demanding, like she'd expect from her Uncle, more like a hopeful suggestion.

Stiles smiles, crooked, and bridges the gap, taking the offered hand and using it to throw himself into a haphazard, too-close, needy sort of hug, body folding in and doing its' best to envelop at the same time.

"Five days," Stiles breathes, relieved and harassed in equal measure, a small tremor wracking his body until Peter gets his arms around him, holds him like he's holding him together, like if he ever lets go those seams will rip and _devestate_ the man, _shatter_ him, too small to ever be put back together again.

"Five days," Peter agrees, promises, soothes, and clutches Stiles impossibly closer.

 _"Fuck_ , this is hard." (For a moment, she wonders: _' **What's** hard?'_ And then she notices where they are, remembers _why_ Stiles had called in the _first_ place, all those weeks ago, and she thinks it's beginning to dawn on her.) "I _miss_ them."

"I know, sweetheart," Peter murmurs against his shoulder, turning his face into Stiles' throat to nuzzle there, "I know."

Stiles' lungs get a little clogged, then, heart speeding up, panicked gasps, water-logged and three clicks away from being frenzied.

 _"Breathe,"_ Peter tells him, and he does.

Laura doesn't get it- or, she does, in that abstract way of something she hasn't gotten her _hands_ on, yet- but she knows this is a moment she can't, _shouldn't_ , interrupt. It belongs to them, and them alone; she's an intruder for having witnessed it at all.

So, she leaves. Decides that, maybe, this time, she can let Uncle Peter have the win, let him keep his relationship to himself for a little while longer.

Some things are bigger than pride, after all, bigger, even, than curiosity.

* * *

"How do you feel about adopting a kid?" Stiles asks as they walk out of the church that hosted tonight's AA meeting, and Peter thinks feeling _blindsided_ by that question, considering, is _completely fair_.

"To be honest with you, I've never thought about it," he answers, honestly, only a little delicately, because he doesn't know where Stiles is going with this and the topic of _children_ tends to be a sensitive one.

Stiles wrings his hands for a moment, before crossing an arm over his chest and chewing on the pad of his thumb, face scrunched up in thought. "Talia's a lawyer, though, right? And you've both got connections—so if there was a kid in the foster system, and you had a little magic to guide your way, it would, theoretically, be easy?"

Peter stares at him, answers, _slowly_ \- because he's starting to get the picture, and he isn't entirely sure he likes it- "Theoretically."

"Okay," Stiles says, nodding buoyantly. "So, say that I poison an abusive dad, and he dies, and his kid ends up in the system—we could get him out relatively quickly?"

Peter thinks he feels a headache coming on. "Yes, but what—" He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose; they're in the middle of the parking lot, other AA members mingling all around them, and it's _freezing_ out. "Do you have a long-term plan for this, sweetheart? Because, yes, the adoption part wouldn't be any kind of hardship- especially with magic to smooth the way- but it would involve Talia- who you've been avoiding _fervently_ , though you've never told me _why-"_ Stiles winces, Peter glares at him- "not to mention the fact that I'm a college student who _kills supernatural creatures in my spare time_ , who does mostly illegal underground trading whenever I'm short on cash, and _you're_ a time-traveling alcoholic assassin who's barely been sober two weeks; what the _hell_ are we gonna do with a _kid?"_

"I don't know!" Stiles half hisses, half yells, throwing his arms up in the air, and Peter decisively drags him roughly away from the influx of incredibly interested gazes, closer to the car, all the while Stiles rants, "But I don't trust anybody else with him, I don't even _know_ Talia, she was dead before I ever got the chance to meet her, and nobody else but you knows _anything_ about—" he gestures around frantically, cuts off with a yelp as Peter tosses him into the passenger seat and slams the car door shut behind him.

Syler- the person who had helpfully sat down with Stiles at his first meeting and explained the steps, explained that, although spirituality tends to play a big part in it, it doesn't always have to, that the biggest thing is to help one another, to hear stories from others who are going through it, relate, and keep moving forward towards a healthier lifestyle; they've also been the one to shut down everyone who got prissy about Stiles' decision not to have a sponsor- gives him a worried look as he rounds the hood to get to the driver's seat, and he gives them a very fake smile of reassurance that they take with the kind of dubiousness and narrowed eyes that means they don't believe his act for a second, and they'll be having _words_ about this later.

He sighs again as he slides into the driver's seat, pulls the door closed, and looks over at Stiles who's gone quiet, eyes on his hands in his lap. He ticks off his fingers silently, from one to ten and back again, over and over; it's something he's done ever since Peter met him, something he didn't understand until Stiles explained about the Nogitsune, something that's gotten worse since he's stopped drinking.

"Do you think I was a good father?" Stiles asks, after the fourth round of it, after Peter's watched his fingers flex and tick, restlessly, endlessly, fruitlessly.

"I have every faith that you were the best father you possibly could be," Peter answers honestly, throat tight, gaze dragging from Stiles' hands to his profile, waxed fuzzy-soft by the muted lights outside, all subsumed by dusk. His eyelashes curl down, brush his cheeks, the thin, fragile length of his neck dotted with freckles and moles, and if Peter focuses, he can hear every heavy breath, silk-wet swallow, the rabbiting beat of his heart.

"Isaac needs... maybe he needs more than anything I can give him, but I." Stiles snaps his jaw shut, pulls his eyes up, staring determinedly ahead, every line of him like _stubborness_ , and Peter _knows_ that Stiles is powerful, he's _seen_ it, but this is _different_ , this is endurance and defiance and a breathless sort of courage, this is the boy who solved every riddle he could in the face of absolute danger, who stood up to psychopaths and mass murderers and _more_ , because the people he loved were on the line; this is the man who survived, who lost everything, and- addictions aside- _kept on going_.

"I'm going to adopt him," Stiles declares, and it's a solemn, _absolute_.

Peter doesn't know why it's this, or maybe it was a confluence of _moments_ , maybe it was all the days, weeks, _months_ spent together, but something clicks, and all of a sudden he knows with absolute certainty that he's helplessly, hopelessly, _overwhelmingly_ in _love_ with this man.

He takes the second he needs to breathe through that epiphany, adjusts himself so he's sitting properly in his seat, slots the keys into the ignition, starts the car and says, "Fuck it, we'll be like every other newly-minted family in the world." Stiles looks at him, startled, and Peter smirks, "Shit-scared and scrambling."

Stiles' eyes widen, and then his whole face breaks into laughter, his entire body thrown into the sound, the surprised delight of it, loud and full, the clattering of bells and the pandemonium of _life_.

Peter reaches over, when his laughter subsides, and they're on the road, heading back home, takes his hand, laces their fingers together, and smiles when Stiles accepts the touch easily, the pad of his thumb smoothing over Peter's knuckles almost idly. "I'm with you, sweetheart," he promises; "always."

Stiles leans over, then, presses a small, sweet, chaste kiss to Peter's cheek, murmurs, "Thank you," like it's a promise of his own, like it's a _benediction_ , and Peter's heart seems to lift, swell, _bloom_.

 _"Always,"_ he repeats, dizzy with it, _consumed_ by it.

* * *

·☥· **Act Six** ·☥·

Dear Isaac

* * *

Peter calls Talia after breakfast to tell her he's bringing Stiles over, and that they'll need to have a more serious conversation after—well, after everyone gets to meet him, because the whole Pack, apparently, has been anticipating this inevitable introduction ever since that drunk dial incident two months ago.

He sighs when he hangs up, sets his phone down on the island. Stiles swivels a little on the bar stool he's sitting on, waggles his eyebrows over his mug of coffee.

"So," he begins, there's a definite thread of laughter in his voice, and Peter narrows his eyes. "They think I'm your boyfriend, huh?"

Peter raises an eyebrow at him, deadpan, and Stiles snorts, setting the mug down on the counter top, leaning forward on his elbows in a way that makes his shoulders jut up, the oversized sleep shirt he's wearing slipping over one, exposing skin and freckles and the flex of muscle, the slope of his collarbone.

"You know," Stiles grins lasciviously, and Peter has to wonder if he's doing this on _purpose_ , "we _are_ cohabitating, and we're about to adopt a kid, for all intents and purposes, _together_. Nobody would blame you for seeing my charm," his voice goes candied, soft and syrupy as he leans ever closer, tilting up, until the quicksand of his eyes- twinkling and crinkled around the edges with teasing mirth- are all Peter can see, lips practically brushing as Stiles continues: "The cheap, debonair law-student and the sarcastic, relatable widow..." Stiles trails off, almost wonderingly, and Peter's lungs constrict, something molten unfurling in his middle, flowing through him, _begging_ for release. Then Stiles pulls back, unwittingly breaking the enthrallment with a soft chuckle, something over-bright and sharp in his eyes as he reclaims his coffee. "I can't tell what the better plot-twist would be; time-travel, or werewolves?"

Peter's fangs push against his gums, an irritating rush of impotent adrenaline, the primal gnaw of _chase_ , the urge to just _claim,_ devour.

He snatches an apple from the basket of fruit Stiles insists on keeping on the island and bites into it viciously, instead. The crunch, the bittersweet juice, the slide of blood red skin between his teeth is enough to curb his hunger. For the _moment_.

"Both," Peter decides, allowing himself a measure of pride in his self-control. "And, while you may be charming, you're also an absolute _ass_ -" "Thank you," comes the immediate, exuberant reply, mug held up in a toasting motion- "what on earth do you mean, I'm _cheap?"_

Stiles shrugs, smirking, and opens his mouth to, probably, make some off the fly snarky comment, and Peter, in a fit of impulsive abandon, vaults over the island, fully intending to- and Gods, he should've noticed he was this far gone before, that he's willing and abiding so much _silliness_ for the sake of this man- _tickle_ him.

Stiles leaps out of his stool with a yelp that breathlessly tumbles into a summery sort of laughter as he runs out of the kitchen, into the living room, Peter wantonly rushing after him.

* * *

Peter shows up at their door with Stiles in tow and... she doesn't know what she was expecting, what _any_ of them were expecting, but, somehow, it wasn't this.

Talia's never seen her little brother _like_ this, for one, not toward a _person_ , at least; his focus is singular, and held carefully, like Stiles is some fleeting mystery, a rabbit that will disappear into the depths of the forest if Peter doesn't sink his teeth in, like he's this idea that's as important as it is terrifying, as fleeting as it is something he fervently wants to _keep_ , smoke he's trying to catch in a jar.

She's seen him obsessed before, whenever there is something _new_ , interesting, in his midst, and it overtakes him, this need to _know_ , to understand everything to its' very basest levels, to have control over it, to be able to _conquer_ it, and when he sets his sights on something, he will bide his time, plan, manipulate, strategize and twist every thread of possibility deftly around his fingers until he can weave together a conclusion where he _gets what he wants_. How he is with Stiles is... similar, but far more complex. It's that curiosity, like a starving thirst, but it's also _warmth_ , it's staying close, protective, a kind of bickering banter that seems nearly _cruel_ , but ends with both men grinning, airy and content, it's touching, whenever Peter can find a chance to touch him, and _worrying_ , it's letting Stiles get away with things Peter would no doubt eviscerate anyone else for.

And the man who changed her brother so completely, who's _swimming_ in Peter's scent, came into her house in gray clothes with a pale red hoodie over it all and his long, dark hair tied up in loose pig-tails. The air around him sizzles with suppressed energy, _power_ , and even though his eyes host graveyards, his lips keep blooming into unrestrained smiles.

Whatever edges aren't smoothed by him simply _being there_ , Stiles grasps, tight-fisted, with an absent: "Peter, if you don't stop being an asshole I'm going to lace _all of your tea_ with white wolfsbane. Swear to God, dude, when you least expect it."

To which Peter makes a disgusted face, but with the admonition, he actually _subsides_ , and Stiles huffs, _"There's_ the zombiesparkle we all know and love."

And Peter gives that one long, slow blink before simply bowing his head, resting his forehead in his hand, elbow anchored on the table, obscuring his downcast eyes with a huff of air that sounds incredibly, surprisingly close to a soft chuckle.

"Zombiesparkle?" Derek breathes, sounding vaguely horrified, at the same time Laura crows it, sounding absolutely delighted.

"You realize I'm never going to call you anything else, right? You're not my Uncle Peter anymore," Laura informs him seriously, and Peter actually seems to be _smiling_ , for all that he's trying to bite it back, "I dub thee zombiesparkle," she intones dramatically, tapping her pen over Peter's right shoulder, then his left, "from this day forward, forevermore."

Stiles bursts into a loud, rich, _full_ kind of laughter, vivacious and heartsoaring, infectious, and not five seconds after he starts everyone else joins in, and Peter moves so his hand is propping up his chin, no longer restraining his smile, a fond, warm, deeply affectionate thing, his heart in his eyes, and, _oh_.

She'd known they were together, but this is _more_ , this is—

He's in _love_ with him. Her little brother, with Stiles.

The revelation- even more than all the evidence that led to it- settles something deep within her, that part of her that's an ocean of wine-red power, that's all wolf and dominance and _provide_ and territory. Stiles makes her little brother happy, and he's already enmeshed in the supernatural world, a caster- though he hasn't elaborated on what kind, druid or mage or witch- with no small amount of power, from what she can tell. His scent, marking him as Peter's- the opposite is true as well, that Peter smells like he belongs to Stiles- already had her wolf recognizing him as someone with the potential to be Pack, but this. This settles it.

(When they leave the rest of the Pack, later, to talk with her in her study, to ask her about adopting a _child_ —well. She'll help them, of course she will, for all that she's immensely surprised by the favor being asked, especially considering Peter being busy with college and it having been alluded to that Stiles was often busy with work, but they both seem determined, set in their decision, _united_.

They're a formidable force, together, she thinks, and finds herself a little proud of her brother for the mate he's found.

She asks, then, if Stiles wants to be officially accepted as a part of the Hale Pack—since their son will inherit a bond the moment he accepts Peter as one of his guardians, anyway. Stiles falters, eyes wide and a thick-loam, chili pepper garden scent swirling with a fresh woodsy sort of smoke and something softer, like mist, like _hope_ , and Peter, beside him, curls his hand around Stiles' wrist, slides his hand down to tangle their fingers together, supportive and unconditionally accepting, already, whatever choice Stiles makes.

There's a long moment of breathless silence, tension and anticipation heavy in the air, though part of her is vaguely confused by it, she understands it's a commitment, on a different, vaster scale than his relationship with Peter, though, perhaps, about on the same scale as his resolve to adopt.

"Yes," Stiles finally says, hoarse, full of indecipherable emotion, and she can tell it's taking all of Peter's considerable self-control not to let his jaw drop, such is his surprise.

She just smiles, pleased, as she begins to silently plan.)

* * *

Isaac's dad is dead.

_Dead._

It's still a strange, numbed shock within him, and part of him doesn't even believe it; he got called into the principal's office in the middle of the day, and he'd walked there like he was walking to his own execution (terrified that maybe someone noticed the way he was holding himself, that maybe someone noticed the bruises and the quiet grimaces of pain. That they'd call his dad, who'd just get _more_ upset at Isaac, for being more trouble than he's worth, and then he'd explain to the principal and the teachers what Isaac's _really_ like, how he takes after his whore of a mother, and then they'd all want to hurt him, too, and he didn't know if he'd survive that, he really didn't) only to find every adult in the room, when he got there, looking at him with big heaping piles of completely confusing sympathy, because his dad, his last living parent, was _dead_.

It's... _impossible_. There's this jumbled tangle of questions in his head, but mostly there's this vague sense of disbelief, even as he gets taken away from the school by some lady from child protective services, who thinks it's better he gets the rest of the day off after receiving such a shock; even as she takes him to a diner in her too-clean silver toyota; even as they order, and then sit down in the red, sticky, plastic booths, the lights over-bright in a mocking, chemical way. He keeps looking out the big, wall-glass window, expecting to see his father's truck, expecting to see him clamber out and walk inside and laugh, and laugh, and laugh at Isaac for being so _stupid_ , for falling for the cheap trick.

The lady keeps trying to get him to _talk_ to her, and she seems nice, maybe too nice, jarring. (His eyes keep catching, like skin on a splinter, on trucks that look _similar_ to his dad's, his heart jumping up his throat every time, with expectation or fear or yearning, he doesn't know, but it's never _actually_ his dad's truck, which is somehow more and more disappointing each time.)

* * *

He doesn't have much by the way of extended family, he learns, an aunt who lives in france, and who, although they won't tell him why, is incapable of taking him in. He ends up, within the span of about a day, in a home with a temporary foster parent and about eight other kids, all of varying ages. The man looking after them all is called Donnie, and he's a cook, and he's _big_ , could probably break Isaac like a twig, and Isaac keeps _expecting_ him to, flinching and then being embarrassed by flinching when a girl a year older than him tells him Donnie's a big teddy bear and Isaac needs to _calm down_ because his aura is _frustrating_ and she's trying to _read_ , here.

Less than half of what she says at any given time makes any sense, and _none_ of this makes sense; the pandemonium of this new environment where all the kids are given relatively free reign, where there's this big, hulking man who asserts his dominance with _words_ , more than anything, who's clumsy, and tender, and who keeps giving them all hugs, whether or not they want them or expect them- it always gives Isaac a heart attack, when it happens, and he's still in that state of heart-thumping fight or flight even as Donnie lets go, so that all he's left with is faint impression of warm weight and fleeting alarm.

The culture-shock is _enormous_ , and he's so awash in the chaos, just trying to _survive_ it, that he doesn't really get enough time or quiet to _process_. (And half of him is still completely unmoored by the idea that his dad's dead, still thinks it's all some sick joke and any second someone's going to draw up the curtain, pointing and jeering and laughing at little _gullible_ Isaac like Camden used to before—just, before.)

And before he even gets the chance to even register this as something that might become his new normal- which would require actually _accepting_ the fact that his father's _gone_ \- a lady with a clipboard who works with the adoption agency comes to take him away, and barely even has enough patience to let Donnie hug him goodbye before she's ushering him into her sleek, kind of expensive looking car; it's the same kind of _too_ clean that the cps lady's was, although there's a suit hung up on a hanger in the back seat which she tells him not to touch and it smells like expensive perfume instead of strawberry bubblegum and air freshener.

 _'Where are we going?'_ He wants to ask her, after Donnie's house is completely out of view and the silence has become pervasive, edged with a new kind of biting, gnawing worry. But his fear bubbles in his throat like acid, and he doesn't know who this person is, if they're _safe_ , and he's all alone in this tiny, cramped car with them, and—there's just no way he can bring himself to ask. What if it just pisses her off? He supposes he's going to figure out the answer soon enough, anyway, that it doesn't really matter.

Still, she must sense something- maybe she can _'read auras'_ like Emma- or maybe she's finally tired of the silence, because she says, "You've got a lotta clout, for a kid."

He frowns at her in the rearview mirror, and she huffs out a laugh.

"I mean, it's not every day we get a bigshot lawyer coming into our offices demanding to get everything done _right this instant._ You should be happy, kid, your new parents obviously want you _bad_ , and they're _rich_ , and well connected, so," she shrugs, rolling down her window as she pulls a packet of cigarettes out of the glove-box, "you'll probably be treated like a prince."

Isaac stares at her as she lights up, and for reasons he can't really fathom, feels completely unsettled and sick, more like an _object_ than a _person_ , being sold off by this big company he's barely seen, can't fathom, to people he doesn't _know_.

It's all too much, and his throat is tight, his eyes are burning, as he fights desperately not to cry.

 _Don't be a **baby** , Isaac,_ he thinks, but the voice in his head sounds suspiciously like his father's, and that just twists the knife deeper.

* * *

His first impression of Peter is that Donnie's got _nothing_ on him, and Donnie's built like a small _tank._

His first impression of Stiles is that he should swim; that's his mom's influence, he knows, he remembers her always talking about how she was meant for the water, that she had the muscles of a dolphin and the sea in her bones, and how she'd always point out people with a certain body-type, say they looked like they belonged to the water like she did.

His overall impression of them both is that they're vaguely worrying- they're both tall, and mountainous, and smiling at him kindly, but he knows how quickly kind smiles can turn into sharp words, thrown punches, being locked away in utter darkness- and that being abandoned here by the adoption agency lady just makes the squirmy, nearly nauseous feeling in his gut _settle_ there, eating at him, twisting claws into his insides and simmering, awful.

They both seem to be being careful with him, which doesn't really help, it just adds anger to the pot that's slowly starting to boil over; they show him his room, which is cozy, dark and colorful all at once, a whole, empty bookshelf in the corner he can fill with whatever he wants, a dresser for his clothes, his own closet, a desk against the wall and a window with a large windowseat, set up to hang out in with throw pillows that match his really fluffy looking bedding, all deep blues with oil-paint stars embroidered.

It's not too big or too small, it's the last door along the hall to the left, the door directly at the end of the hall going into Peter's room, and the door on the other side of the hall into the bathroom. Stiles' room is right next to Isaac's, and they both tell him that, no matter what, their doors will always be open. ("Might be better to come to me, though, if you need anything in the middle of the night or whatever—a Peter without beauty sleep is _not_ a fun Peter." _"You're_ the one who's practically incapable of functioning without coffee." "Fuck you," it's said lightly, with a lop-sided grin, which throws Isaac for a loop because he's only ever heard phrases like that said with _fury_ snapping hungrily at the edges. "Language." A blithe shrug. "Freedom of speech.")

After he's been introduced to every facet of the apartment that they can show him, and some of the tension has left him- though he's still got bile burning the back of his throat, feels sick and numb-dizzy and _vexed_ (his dad used to say that, before he'd hit Isaac especially hard, that Isaac was _vexing_ him)- he and Stiles settle on the couch to watch some tv while Peter cooks them all dinner ("Can't we just get pizza, or something? That way you can sit with us?" "You really want the first meal we have with him to be _pizza?"_ "Oh my _God_ , you're such a snob."), which isn't to say that he's not involved; he keeps interjecting random anecdotes and annoyances and talking to both Isaac and Stiles all throughout and it feels _weird_. They talk to each other like _crazy people_ , the words are all brutal and teeth digging in to draw blood, but the _tone_ is... sweet? It's kinda like the tone his mom used with his dad, but _deeper_.

Stiles is a little quieter, kinder, when he speaks to Isaac. Peter isn't, his words still blunt and keen, but his eyes stay warm, and Isaac doubts his feelings on the matter- uncomfortable, daunted- would change even _if_ Peter was gentler with him.

When dinner is made, they kind of naturally converge in the kitchen, and conversation moves to what they're going to need to do as his newly minted guardians in terms of school and medical care and talk of _therapy_ , because mental health is important, too. Isaac makes a face because it doesn't seem like something he _needs_ , let alone _wants_ , and Stiles starts babbling about how he may or may not need to go to a few sessions himself, and may or may not want someone else to go with him, and, plus side, therapy days will probably double as half-school days and they can get milkshakes and curly fries after—all of which is to say: Isaac's opinion on whether or not he wants to go is actually _important_.

Like, Stiles is trying to get him to see the light by going on a begging sort of ramble and even Peter looks vaguely earnest. Like, if he says _no_ they'd... _let_ him. And he's almost tempted to say no just for the sheer _thrill_ of _having_ that choice but... it's too easy. It could be a trap. It could be, he says no, and they use that to punish him; it's only his first day here, and he doesn't know how long he'll be _staying_ here, he doesn't want...

He doesn't want to be punished, so he says yes, and he finishes his meal, and a small, cracked part of him _seethes_.

* * *

It's nice that they let him leave his door ajar, when they send him to bed, just a small opening, but it makes him feel less like the walls are trying to creep in on him, to _consume_ him.

The past week, bedtime's been kids screaming and yelling and Donnie trying to wrangle them all into some form of tangled pile, just to get them settled and _calm_ , and by then _he_ would be tired and falling asleep on all of them, the others, exhausted by their own enthusiasm to _rebel_ against sleep, following soon after him, and the whole lot of them waking up in a huge, sweaty puddle of people in the morning.

Now, there's just... _quiet_.

And his mind starts to play with the shadows, spin itself into circles, because his dad's dead, _really_ dead. Gone, forever, and Isaac doesn't know how to _deal_ with that, doesn't know how to deal with how he _feels_ about that; part of him is _angry_ , frustrated and upset and confused, but a bigger part of him is _relieved_ \- even though he's _sad_ , like he thinks he _should_ be- and he feels so _guilty_ , because you shouldn't ever be relieved someone's _dead!_ And that shame just feeds his frustration until he's this big ball of writhing, overwhelming emotions, strangled and constricted by them all, and, not even really thinking on a conscious level, he sits up, all tangled in a comforter that smells like sage and spice and _air_ , and punches his pillow, just to get some of that twisted, visceral energy _out_.

It helps, a little, so he does it again, and again, and again, his emotions surging like a tide, overflowing, until he's sobbing and grunting as he hits his new pillows with the same ferocity his dad used to hit him, until his mind as all dull-throb white noise, and he keeps going until he physically _can't_ anymore, curling up into a ball as his body shakes, chilled, his breathing a harsh, hiccupy thing, as he weeps for his mommy and his daddy (who stopped being his daddy the moment his mother died) and his big brother and _himself_. It hurts, it _all_ hurts, so he sucks in a deep ragged breath, and he lets it break him, lets himself shudder and weep and drown in it.

He's too caught up to notice his door opening wider, Stiles' bare feet slowly pacing across the carpet toward him, and he startles badly when Stiles kneels by his bed, the mattress dipping a little when he crosses his arms on it, rests his chin on them to look at Isaac directly, eyes that remind him of relic-life fossilized in amber boring into him. "Can I touch you?" He asks softly, and Isaac is _furious_ , he hates him, he hates _everything_ , and if he's trying to trick him so he can punish him for being too loud or being too much of a pussy or something why can't he just _get it over with already?_

 _"No,"_ he snaps thoughtlessly, and then stills, filled with a sudden foreboding dread. But Stiles just nods amenably, understanding, and shuffles himself around so that his back's against the wall, his side barely a hairsbreadth away from the bed, but no part of him actually in _contact_ with it.

"It's okay, you know," Stiles murmurs into the dark-quiet, gaze cast down to his hands in his lap, fingers twitching minutely, "to feel whatever you feel. This shit... it's _hard_. And grief never makes sense, makes even less sense when the person you're grieving was... _difficult."_

Issac tries to stifle another sob at that, even though he doesn't quite understand it, doesn't think it should fit him as well as it does, but the words resonate, and the flood it brings is bigger than him, too big for him to fight.

Isaac coughs wetly, beginning to weep again, helplessly, now that the shock of a new person being there has passed, even though he doesn't _want_ to cry in front of this stranger, doesn't want to be so _weak_ , but Stiles starts talking as if Isaac isn't crying at all, starts weaving a bedtime story full of werewolves and dragons and faeries and... it's _dark_ , he gets the feeling the ending might not be happy, or, even if it is, it'll take so much horror to get there, but the story, or maybe just the way Stiles is telling it, pulls him in, sweeps him up and away, wood-smoke timbre drawing him from the deep-well of his misery, coating him in fairytale twilight, making him feel light, floaty, and tingly in the back of his head, sleep falling heavy on him, wrapped up in the splendor of dreams filled with wild, fantastical adventures.

* * *

He stirs, wakes slightly, his senses dull and his body wrung out, but there's a gentle sound, and it compels him to open his eyes, even if the comfort of his bed and the drowsy-dark are already begging him back to sleep.

He blinks with a small snuffle, sees but doesn't really register Peter, who's sweeping into the room with a blanket in his arms that he spreads over Stiles, who's head is settled next to Isaac's on the bed, and who's deep enough asleep that he doesn't notice the other man tucking him in, just snuggles further up against the bed. Peter huffs a laugh, sweet and serene and fond, and drops down beside him, looking at Isaac over his head with a faint smile.

"Everything's alright, pup," he whispers, and, in that moment, Isaac believes him with an intensity that is startling. "Go back to sleep."

Isaac breathes, closes his eyes, thinks he hears the beginnings of a low-rumble lullaby, but is lost to sleep before he can be sure.

* * *

The first year with Isaac is _hard_ , both he and Stiles getting therapy helps, it _does_ , but it gets worse before it gets better: Isaac gets suspended for breaking another student's nose and swings between angry and confused and fretful at home, Stiles falls off the wagon twice- not hard, really, but the guilt he feels after, and the _struggle_ is unenviable- and Peter, himself, is the cause of many of Isaac's worst tantrums, throws a few tantrums of his own in the midst of trying to learn how to take care of a child, make space for him in his life and his heart, where he is far more used to being anti-social with an edge of cruelty, of distance, even with people he thinks are precious.

He'd become that way through years of being on the fringes of his Pack, being considered a worthy weapon, but, because of that, a _feared_ , mistrusted man. The first person who'd crawled beneath his walls and made a home for themselves beneath his skin, to be loved and protected fiercely- because when you have so much less to hold onto, you hold onto whatever you _do_ have with as much ferocious tenacity as you are capable- was Stiles, and he'd done it so easily, so quickly, that Peter hadn't even noticed until it was too late. With Isaac it's different, because Isaac has been stripped down to this brutal, broken, raw sort of version of himself, and because his rebelliousness in the face of a place where he _can_ be rebellious clashes with Peter's need for control, and his own cold-ice fury pits against Isaac's much louder, explosive, fiery rage.

Stiles doesn't really temper them, considering, and half the time it all ended in screaming matches, but- because Stiles is forever unique, and will _never_ make any sense- those often ended in _laughter_ , when they realized they were either, one, fighting for the _same thing_ , or, two, had gotten completely sidetracked along the course of things and ended up somewhere utterly ridiculous. And laughter would, eventually, begrudgingly, result in cooler heads and compromise.

Only once, when Peter'd been too harsh in the midst of an argument that was already devolving inanely, had Stiles forced him out of the apartment, telling him, his voice barely a hiss, lightning crackling along his arms, to go take a fucking walk. Peter had come back _truly_ apologetic with a ridiculous amount of ice cream and ice cream toppings and- at Talia's bidding, for all that it felt _silly_ , and _cliché_ , and very much _not enough_ \- flowers. Isaac and Stiles had apparently settled their own part of the fight, both of them curled up on the couch together, Stiles helping Isaac do homework, LP playing in the background, and both of them had looked up when he came in, wariness colored with some residual anger in both of their eyes until he started speaking, contrite, and Isaac had noticed the treats while Stiles had noticed the flowers, and both of them were so startled by the display- from _him_ of all people- that they burst into laughter and clambered over each other to tackle him into a hug.

They'd spent the rest of the night eating too much ice cream, Stiles washing one of the cartons, later, and starting a paper mache project with it to turn it into the perfect vase for his 'much deserved' flowers.

Together, they fight and they grow and they change and they _heal_. The packbonds strengthen with a speed that amazes him, but they're _more_ than Pack, the three of them are _family_ , and he'd never, in his entire life, thought that he could have something like this, even if it's chaotic and sometimes infuriating.

During their second year with Isaac, they tell him about werewolves, magic, and they introduce him more firmly to the Pack, his new, extended family. He rails against it for awhile, not uncomfortable or scared, but frustrated and claustrophobic with the intensity of it, before eventually becoming accepting, the knowledge actually making him more _comfortable_ with Peter, more understanding (although he has no doubt that Stiles is still the boy's favorite).

Isaac starts becoming friends with the children that had once grown into Stiles' Pack, Scott, Erica, Boyd, Lydia, Jackson, and Danny with the addition of Cora and Cat and, perhaps most surprisingly, this timeline's Stiles—who still goes by Mischief, now, and will probably continue to until his mother dies, which, Stiles informed him, eyes muddied and shoulders slumped, is something that will be happening fairly soon; she's already been hospitalized, and there's nothing any of them can really do to stop it, to save her. Stiles has, however, confided in him plans to nip his father's alcoholism in the bud, not a completely selfless endeavor on his part, he'd said, because he wants to preserve whatever relationship he could have with the man, even if all they might be able to have in this time is a light friendship.

There's a kind of timid, fragile happiness that seems to wrap around Stiles whenever Isaac brings them all home to hang out. Isaac, because he is far more intuitive than he lets on, and has become _incredibly_ close with Stiles, ends up bringing his friends by more and more often, until the small pack of children becomes as much a part of their lives as their own Pack.

Peter manages to graduate college with honors, entering his elder sister's law firm and dealing with his day job as pragmatically and viciously as he deals with his night job, the only difference being lack of bloodshed. Stiles, who has already diverted the timeline from every possible track toward _his_ future, becomes something of a supernatural information broker, and, though he still takes missions as a mercenary/assassin, is home far more often than he is off saving the world. (Isaac has taken to staying up late with Peter on the nights that Stiles leaves and the nights that he's meant to come home, and is always just a little quieter when he's gone.)

It's been three years when Isaac calls him _'dad'_ for the first time, and Peter thinks Stiles is the most surprised, if only because he'd been _sure_ Isaac would call _him_ dad, or some variation thereof, _first_ —the subsequent overdramatized coddling and supplication is enough to forestall whatever freak out Isaac might've had for the slip-up and only ends when Isaac jokingly calls Stiles mom and the other man gets so stupidly overjoyed that he cries.

He continues to call them by their names, but starts interspersing titles here and there until they're both as much mom and dad (which is interchangeable for _both_ of them—Peter so often called _mother_ , the word dripping with a sardonic sort of fondness, that the others have begun calling him that as well, whenever he does _anything_ neurotic or nurturing, it's _infuriating_ ) as they are Peter and Stiles.

There has been no small amount of difficulty- especially with his family still under the impression, no matter how many times they've denied it, that Stiles and Peter are together- in dealing with his feelings for Stiles over the years, but he's been caught up in the anarchy of this new life, this new family, they _both_ have, and he realizes that... Stiles still loves Lydia— _his_ Lydia, the ghost who traveled back in time through the veil to haunt him, a woman strong and weak in equal parts. And perhaps Stiles has begun moving on, with this world and all its' people and his life here with them, integrated into the Hale Pack and with a son to take care of, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's ready for another romantic relationship.

The longing Peter feels has lessened some, even as the love he feels for the other man continues to grow, every day comes with another incremental heart-skipping realization that he _loves_ him, and it knocks him breathless sometimes, that the feeling can keep getting bigger and _bigger_ like this, but he's settled into it, accepted it, even with the soft-ache realization that his feelings may never be returned, that they might stay friends, family, but never be what Peter _wants_ them to be.

If raising a child has taught him nothing else, though, it's taught him that want and need are two very different things, and that there are many different types of ways to love someone. (They've both taught him _so much_ about love these past few years, things he'd never known, or, if he had known, hadn't understood. He will admit that, though he cared for his Pack before, he may not have completely, wholly, _loved_ them, not as keenly and as fiercely as he loves Stiles and Isaac, and not the way he's come to love his Pack, now.) He knows he can love Stiles with this depth and complexity and never-ending yearning with just the barest hints of pain underneath- and he knows with the same kind of certainty life knows death and water knows the moon that he will never, _ever_ love anyone else like this, not in a way that _humbles_ him, makes him worry and care and _cleave_ \- and still live without it ever coming to fruition, so long as he has Stiles and Isaac by his side.

Accepting that is not the same as denying it, however, and he doesn't feel any shame in it. Besides, he's pretty sure Stiles already knows, and if he doesn't he's being purposely obtuse to protect himself. As long as they're all happy and contented, together and alive, he honestly doesn't care.

There is a point, at the very end of this year, when Claudia Stilinski dies and Stiles asks Peter to tie him to his bed- not in any sort of sexual way, but in the way of someone who would drown himself in alcohol if he got half the chance and desperately doesn't want to break his sobriety- they both know that he could get out of it if he really wanted to, use his magic or his intelligence or his training, but there's something about the symbolism, the feeling of it, the _trust_ , and the submission he offers with a trembling delicacy, a breathtaking tenacity.

Peter watches over him like that until the day is over, doesn't untie him until he starts to break down a little, finally yielding to the tide of anguished grief, borne from a scar ripped open anew, the fresh salt mingling with still gaping wounds from a timeline that no longer exists, all of it crashing over him along with something _else_ , honest and pure and _stark_. It's then that he claws him free from rope, rubs circulation back into his hands and his feet, carries him to the bathroom and washes him, sings to him, dries him, clothes him, and spends the rest of the night cuddling him.

The night after, when Stiles crawls into Peter's bed and curls up against his side, he doesn't stop him. By the beginning of the fourth year, everything in Stiles' room has migrated to his, clothes and books all mingled with his, creating chaos in a place that was once inherently tidy (Stiles and Isaac have both called him OCD more than once, he maintains that they're just utterly incapable of being anything other than _slobs_ ).

But it's a good kind of chaos, and he doesn't think he'd change a single goddamn thing for the _world_.

* * *

Stiles isn't really paying attention to the other parents around him, too focused on the half-conversation he's having with the Nemeton in his head. The language they use is fluid, all emotion and a thick, silken deep-well of churning thought that's difficult to parse at the best of times, and, despite his bond with them, he doesn't often open the line of communication like this- they're content to rest within the consciousness of the wood, and he's content to let them- but there's an outbreak of feral _gnomes_ , of all things. The hive-minded little bastards like to keep underground, popping up in the most inconvenient places and breeding like rabbits, so there's an overabundance of the baby-eating fuckers and they seem to be _everywhere_ , even though neither Stiles, Peter, or Talia can get a lead on them.

Hence his current tête-à-tête with the only thing he knows of that has a complete intrinsic awareness of everything alive and dead and _within the ground_ of Beacon Hills.

He's called back to reality, though, by Peter gently placing a hand on his shoulder, and Stiles blinks dumbly at the kindly questioning face of the woman before him. "I——uh, what?"

She laughs, a gentle breezy sound, and waves off the apology, "Don't worry about zoning out, babe," she says, "I get it. It's late, we're all tired, and these goddamn teachers are making us stand in line and wait our turn like we're _kids_ again." She tuts, shaking her head, and he's kind of got to agree with her. It'll be nice to get Isaac's teachers' perspectives, but it's annoying as hell being shuffled around like this when he's running on two days without any sleep and he's bruised in at least nine different places.

The Nemeton hums their amusement in his bones, and, when he tells them to kindly fuck off for a moment, the bright-taffy mirth just grows; for a second he's so blindly irritated that all he wants to do is _punch_ something. He snatches Peter's hand instead, squeezes hard enough to break bone.

The 'were doesn't even flinch, just smirks a little knowingly. Stiles tongues the back of his teeth to keep himself from laughing hysterically—he doesn't know what about this strikes him as funny, all of a sudden, but he's pretty sure a large part of it has to do with sleep deprivation.

The woman notices their hands and grins at them both with some sort of hopeless romantic love-struck look in her eyes, and Stiles wonders how she's actually falling for the subtlety instead of noticing- white knuckles, painful grip, nails digging- the violence.

He waits until she's out of ear-shot, off to go mingle with more interesting parents who are more sociable and less dead on their feet, to ask curiously, "How come everyone thinks we're together?"

Peter raises an eyebrow at him, gaze pointedly sardonic when it lingers on their hands. Stiles groans in exasperation, but decidedly doesn't let go, doesn't even gentle his grip.

"You know what I mean. Like, it's not just random strangers who see us being _Pack_ and misinterpret it. Isaac and _all of his friends_ think we're married in every way but on paper and just roll their eyes whenever either of us say it isn't like that, Noah and Syler have the whole AA group believing their crazy theory that we've experienced really bad homophobia in the past and we're trying to keep our relationship on the DL to protect ourselves, and the rest of our Pack can _smell_ the evidence, and are still completely delusional- Laura's the only one who's accepted the whole 'we're just friends' thing at face value, and, even then, she"- he one-handedly uses air-quotes here- " _'ships_ us'."

"Well," Peter murmurs, almost sarcastic, almost thoughtful, "it might be that we're raising a son together—we share a house, a room, a family; I occasionally bathe you and tie you to the bed-" Stiles makes an indignant noise, because that's _completely_ out of context- "and I _am_ in love with you."

It's said so nonchalantly that for a second Stiles' brain just stalls out, like an old cd player skipping back over the same verse again and again until the ceaseless repetition makes the words and the music sound inane, like nonsense, gibberish. "You're in love with me," he breathes, faint, before lets go of Peter's hand to cuff his shoulder, hissing, "you can't just _say_ shit like that, dude!"

Peter laughs in a way that's just shy of supervillain-y and Stiles hits his shoulder a few more times, sputtering, until Peter finally cuts him off with a: "It's not like you didn't _know."_

And while that's... true, in a sense- it's one of Stiles' _best_ assets, his intuition and capacity for seeing through patterns, and it isn't like Peter's ever tried very hard to _hide_ it- it's still so _boggling_ to hear it out loud. Not that Peter _loves_ him- because, at this point, that's a given, they're _family_ \- but that he's _in love_ with him.

Peter offers a calm, pleased sort of smile, teased puckish at the edges, his eyes sparkling like sunlight crystallized in freshly fallen snow. It's more acceptance than resignation, more devotion and loyalty than anything else, and Stiles swallows. This isn't the first time that expression has been turned on him, and he has a feeling it won't be the last, but this is the first time he's wanted to _do_ anything about it.

He leans forward, breathless, a little shiver crawling down his spine, anticipation and excitement and nervousness on his lips when he presses them fleetingly against Peter's.

His love and his grief, his _scars_ , will forever be a part of him, but it's been a long journey, and they're no longer such a raw wound, more an ache, the consistent memory of pain dulled—not necessarily by _time_ , but by _moments_. Moments like this one, like Peter's eyes wide, mouth nearly gaping, and Stiles has never seen him _speechless_ before; like the instant ice-blade eyes melt into moonlight caught in the prism of raindrops and a hand wraps around the back of his neck as Peter reels him in, dives more insistently, and Stiles laughs against the other man's teeth, trembles into a whimper embarrassingly quickly when Peter swallows the sound, all wet-heat rough and _curious_ , because Peter's _always_ curious.

His mouth, his tongue, his teeth, his gums, all explored, at _length_ , until Stiles is sure that Peter has memorized every piece of him there, until his knees go weak and he's outright moaning as Peter's fingers tangle in his hair and pull deliciously, almost perfectly——just—right— _there_ , and——

"Peter," he whines, because he's never made that sound before in his _life_ , and everyone in the goddamn hall is undoubtedly staring at them now, "take me _home."_

It's telling, he thinks, and mildly embarrassing, that instead of responding with a spark of sarcasm or trying to deny the request because they are here for a _reason_ \- and Peter's usually far less impulsive than he- the man just picks him up in a bridal carry with a subvocal, primal growl, and _carries him_ out of the goddamn school.

"Oh my god," Stiles giggles, half delighted half hysterical, clinging to him until Peter tosses him into the car, wondrously managing to be gentle despite his urgency. Somehow, all of the exhaustion from the past two days decides to hit Stiles _right then_ , and his jaw's cracking with a yawn by the time Peter's in the driver's seat. He knows he's probably going to fall asleep on the way to their apartment, knows Peter won't wake him up for the _world_ when he does—the man spent an hour lecturing him to stop neglecting sleep yesterday, threatened to tie him to the bed twice before ultimately giving up. And for all the things that may or may not change, now, Stiles thinks he can finally admit one thing, and, dizzyingly, he actually really, really _wants_ to:

"I'm in love with you, too," he murmurs, happy-light and blissful. Then, because he's _Stiles_ : "Even if you _are_ an absolute ass."

"And _you're_ a hypocrite if you think we aren't one and the same, in that."

Stiles would blow a raspberry- he's the epitome of maturity, yes he is- except his mouth's been recaptured in a lip-biting, slow, helplessly enamored sort of kiss that he returns in kind, his heart feeling lighter than it has in a long, long while, skin tingly, and the darkness behind his eyelids getting deeper, heavier, as the kiss slows, goes more languid even as Stiles feels his consciousness slipping.

He hears Peter sigh, though it's airy and slanting toward joyful, hears him say, "Sweet dreams, my insufferable love," and then he's gone.

Their relationship evolving, their family adapting, even those goddamn _gnomes_ all become a problem for another day. For now, their car rumbles out an abstract lullaby, and the pastel colors of near-dusk become blurred, milky hues through the window as Stiles feels a wide, rough, enveloping hand cover his, and all he can do is smile.

(In his dreams, he will see her, volcanic hair and sea-glass eyes, their little girl holding her hand, and she'll smile at him, bursting with _pride_ , and he'll laugh, wet and tear-soaked, as their ghosts fade, and, finally, _rest._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have made it to the end of the line. Are you proud of you? I'm proud of you. You're awesome.


End file.
